THOMASVILLE, N.C. — North Carolina farmers have come together to change the landscape of how people receive food in our state.
Zachary Rierson is a farmer and owner of Rierson Farm in Thomasville. But he’s also a part of Piedmont Fresh, an online farmer's market. It’s a platform for food growers to sell fresh products like meat, fruits and vegetables online.
“Having food available for the community, selling at farmer's market as a farmer, we’ve seen a lot of people who either can’t afford food or is just really hard for them to find us. So, to make a really easy way for people to order fresh food online, it’s harvest to order and eliminates the food waste that you might see sometimes at a farmer's market,” Rierson said.
Customers order food by Monday of every week, farmers harvest food on Tuesdays and drop it off at the food hub on Wednesday, and customers pick up it on Thursdays.
The system aims to provide the freshest food to customers and caters to all communities. And most recently Piedmont Fresh has been approved to accept SNAP and EBT.
“We believe in food access for all. Really the premise for us wanting to start this was to get fresh food and those perishable goods to those who need it. Especially those in lower income communities, those who utilize SNAP, EBT, WIC,” Rierson said.
This is part of the Davidson County Local Food Network. Making fresh food accessible to the community is important to Rierson, but it’s not just about food access — Rierson and others are trying to get more people into farming.
Getting to see everything from harvest and getting this food into our customers' hand, it really means a lot.“Getting to see everything from harvest and getting this food into our customers' hand, it really means a lot. It gives hope and purpose to us that, you know, people younger than us can come in and take over and see it through. That’s one of the biggest things for me,” Rierson said.
And their network is always welcoming new farmers as the food they’re selling is flying out of the garden.
“We’re looking for people to sell because each week we are selling about 80%-90% of what we have listed and you know that doesn’t leave much to sell on our website," Rierson said. "So we really want more producers so we have diversity of product and increase product in general so we can make that difference."
They have two pickup locations for customers: one in Thomasville at the Food Hub inside Greater Vision Outreach, and the other in Lexington at Goose and The Monkey Brewhouse.
“We want to try and go to where our customers are and make it easier. We have local bus stops and local to our pickup location here. We have a lot of people coming through the town, and we’re downtown right next to the Lexington farmer's market, and people are already accustomed to coming here,” Rierson said.
Piedmont Fresh serves Davidson County, but the organization is working to get more farmers involved from surrounding counties from Mecklenburg to Danville.
If you would like to order from Piedmont Fresh or become one of its growers, you can find out more here.