Pop-up market tries to fill grocery gap downtown

Even as one attempt to provide an inner-city grocery store falters, another one is starting out.
 
Thursday saw the announcement that the Good Food Junction Co-op grocery store at 20th Street and Avenue L will close later this month.
 
But over in City Park, another group was holding a pop-up market selling fresh fruit and vegetables at the Community Service Centre on 25th Street East.
 
Called the City Centre Food Co-Op, Sugandhi del Canto said they formed after City Park’s last grocery store closed last September.
 
“We want people to be able to have access to healthy food, and we want people to keep shopping in the downtown area before they get fixed into other habits and it’s no longer on their radar to shop close to home,” she said.
 
The co-op gets their products from CHEP, and del Canto said the first day was a success — with many items selling out within the first few hours.
 
“I’ve heard people squeal about cauliflower today and it made me so happy,” she said.
 
The pop-up market is scheduled to run every other Thursday for now, but del Canto said the group would like to open a store.
 
That said, she acknowledged the difficulty that others have had making a grocery store stick in the core of Saskatoon.
 
“I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned from the history of food stores opening and closing downtown. And while I don’t pretend to have all the answers, we are being very cautious in seeing what the general market is like,” she said.