North Charleston grocery store will offer discount to locals

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Fresh Future Farm grocery store in North Charleston will offer discounts to locals starting Saturday.

"It absolutely is therapeutic," said Germaine Jenkins, Chief Farm Officer at Fresh Future Farm. She started the garden and grocery store in 2014 along with her two children.

"If you come here you can get everything you need," said Adrian Mack. He said the grocery store has anchored North Charleston's food desert since it opened. "There's not a lot of options for people here, so we try to give them fresh fruit for a reasonable price."

"It’s not fair that some can afford to eat and some can’t," said Anik Hall, Special Projects Manager and daughter of Germaine Jenkins. She says that belief is taking root.

"We were just brainstorming a way to make it more affordable, and we just came up with a price for people in the neighborhood."

Anyone living in Chicora Cherokee will be given a discount, though details are still being ironed out.

"I wanted our neighbors to have the same quality produce we had at our house," Jenkins said.

North Charleston City Officials confirmed they've offered financial incentives, as well as promises to donate property to a grocery store to build in the area. None have agreed.

"We’ve only met challenges, but the city is committed to the effort of bringing a grocery store to the south end of the city," Ryan Johnson with North Charleston Mayor's office wrote in an email.

Johnson also wrote that grocery stores say certain areas of North Charleston don't meet their needed metrics to build.

"Since the grocery business operates on tight margins, most don’t feel comfortable taking what they consider to be a risk on the south end."

Jenkins knows something's gotta give.

"If we want folks to be able to eat healthy and shop around their schedule, we have to go to sliding scale in order for more people to access what we have," she said.

Tending not just to the garden, but to the neighborhood that surrounds it.

"Somebody said the solution to a lot of our problems are in a garden, so I believe it."

North Charleston leaders confirmed they have no timeline for when a grocery store might be added to one of the areas considered a 'food desert'.