AwesomeStPaul is excited to announce our March 2025 grant has been awarded to Brightside Produces’
Corner Store Program. This project provides incentives for corner stores in St. Paul’s “food deserts” to offer customers fresh produce.

In applicant Justa Heinen-Kay’s words, “Eliminating food deserts in underserved urban areas is a major public health priority. In many lower income and racially diverse parts of the Twin Cities, there are few grocery stores available within walking distance, making it difficult for families who live in underserved communities to purchase fresh, healthy food. Low-income city residents often buy groceries from corner stores since these small retailers are embedded within neighborhoods and convenient to shop at without requiring transportation. However, it is difficult for corner stores to stock high-quality, low-cost fresh produce for a variety of reasons, including the lack of a viable distribution service and the financial risk of stocking perishable items.

BrightSide Produce was founded in 2014 by two 16-year olds from North Minneapolis and a University of St Thomas professor to create a novel way for corner stores to stock affordable fresh produce. For over 10 years, Brightside’s nationally-recognized Healthy Corner Store Program has provided a year-round fresh produce distribution service for corner stores in underserved Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods. Our convenient weekly service overcomes key barriers to stocking fresh produce for small stores by offering flexible ordering terms, no minimum order, and a small markup above wholesale cost to keep prices low. BrightSide currently partners with about 45 corner stores in Minneapolis and St. Paul, all of which are independent “mom and pop” shops owned by people of color, and distributes about 3500 pounds of fresh produce per week to corner stores.

Our corner store fresh produce distribution service is transformative for fresh food access in underserved communities. Many of our partner corner stores say that they would not be able to stock fresh produce without BrightSide’s services. However, because we keep prices low for stores, it is expensive to operate this program and requires subsidies to keep it sustainable.”