Mount Royal University has a wide variety of food options for students and staff, yet the options aren’t always kind to the wallet. Now, Fresh Routes is back at MRU to offer fresh produce to the community at a low price and convenient location.
Fresh Routes is a mobile grocery store that travels across the city to offer fresh produce to different communities for a reasonable price. Each location operates with one staff personnel from Fresh Routes and the help of volunteers.
“For a couple of hours, once a week, there’s a mobile grocery store available for any community member to access,” says Martin Robillard.
Robillard is a route driver for Fresh Routes and has been helping bring fruits and vegetables to a bunch of communities across Calgary for two years. He has worked in a gamut of markets for the company and says that the convenience and affordability of Fresh Routes keep customers coming back.
“Our whole concept is to bring it to our customers. We try to bring about a selection of about 32 different items,” says Robillard.
The wide range of produce at a location close to home isn’t the only thing that Fresh Routes prides itself on. While costs of produce continue to rise, the mobile grocery store keeps prices down to accommodate community members in need.
“We try to be about 30 percent less expensive than the average grocery store,” says Robillard.
This mobile grocery service means a lot to the Mount Royal University community. This is the second time MRU is bringing in Fresh Routes. It was initially brought in in 2019 and ended amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Lisa Antichow, support services manager at SAMRU, detailed how community members mourned the loss of Fresh Routes over the past few years.
“We would always hear students be like, we want a grocery store, we want access to fresh fruits and vegetables so we just jumped at the opportunity,” says Antichow.
Antichow hopes that the implementation of Fresh Routes at MRU will provide a service to MRU staff and students that will have a positive impact on the community.
“We have a population that needs access to fresh fruits and vegetables and yeah — there’s grocery stores close by, but you know, there are students that live on residents that don’t have vehicles and we are not only bringing food to them, but also at like a really reasonable price,” says Antichow.
Fresh Routes has had a successful first few weeks back at MRU. Check out the mobile grocery store located in Wyckham House every Monday from 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
