The CEO of Good Apple, an Austin-based produce delivery service, is taking aim to eliminate food insecurity by addressing mobility and transportation barriers.
Gabe Breternitz started his business as a partnership between Austin residents and students at the University of Texas Dell Medical School and was inspired by one-on-one models that didn't rely on donations, Breternitz said.
"Austin has many food pantries and the CTFB is a robust and effective food bank, but when we started out, we found there were still people struggling to access free resources due to unreliable transportation or limited mobility for other reasons," Breternitz said. "We wanted to offer healthy food for people and also make it convenient for them to receive the produce. Ultimately, you're way more likely to impact health outcomes by relieving food security when you can offer (the) reliability of service."
For some Good Apple customers, the convenience factor has helped to make a lack of mobility a bit easier to deal with. One client Breternitz discussed was one with a severe vision impairment who loves to cook but often found herself sacrificing healthy food choices due to a lack of convenience in getting them.
"She told us that prior to Good Apple, she had trouble picking out produce herself, and often had to ask others for help identifying what may be spoiled or not," Breternitz said. "She cannot get around reliably due to her condition, so often she would make compromises on the food she bought that had less to do with health and more to do with what was convenient for her and the people that helped her. Now, she gets a regular box of produce delivered to her every other week, and everything in there has already been checked to make sure it's fit for consumption. She told us she loves to make tamales and gets excited to see what's coming in her box each delivery."
Good Apple has donated over 30,000 boxes of produce, the equivalent of 580,000 meals and 850,000 pounds of food.
"The best way to fight food insecurity is to talk about it," Breternitz said. "It is likely that you know someone that faces food insecurity and have no idea. Food insecurity is one of those issues that hides in plain sight - most people are vaguely aware of the problem, but its ubiquity makes it feel almost normal or inevitable. It's important to remind ourselves that it is not."
Every box sold by Good Apple goes toward delivering another box to Austin families.