A food desert. It's a term used to describe a neighborhood that has no local access to fresh groceries. Most always they're poor, inner city areas. There are plenty of liquor stores that sell processed meats, milk and bread, but rarely healthy fresh items like fruits and vegetables. As a result, the overall health of residents suffer.

Enter the mobile grocery store. Entrepreneurs all over the U.S. are taking large trucks or busses and filling them with fresh fruit and vegetables. They then take the food to neighborhoods in need.

The trend and business idea seems to come as an offshoot of the food truck revolution. In Chicago, Steven Casey saw this need in his Englewood neighborhood and started Fresh Moves. The concept is simple. If residents in poor neighborhoods can't make it to stores that carry healthy food, the Fresh Moves bus will bring produce to them. Casey and his group bought an old bus from the Chicago Transit Authority for a dollar, spent $50,000 converting it into a retail grocery store and his business began.

In an article in the Chicago Tribune Casey said,

"Eventually, we want to be just like the ice cream truck,"..."Everyone remembers the music, they hear it and they know ice cream is there. When they see our bus, we want them to know fresh fruits and vegetables are here."

Here's a nice piece done by my friend John Yang at NBC News on Casey's Fresh Moves.

Here's another piece on the Fresh Moves bus conversion as well as their operation