The Temescal Produce Market, located at Telegraph and 51 Street, opened in November of 2009 and is co-owned by AbdulElsumeri and his cousin Jamal Ahmed. It is a welcome change in a neighborhood where finding fresh and healthy food is difficult. The Market sells a variety of organic produce alongside environmentally friendly cleaning and paper products, fresh bread, and bulk goods. Residents are excited to have a grocery store to go to that is easy to access and that offers healthy foods. These attributes are hard to come by throughout much of Oakland, where there are three times the amount of fast food and convenience stores compared to produce stands and grocery stores.
Other than grocery chains such as Safeway and Whole Foods there are not a lot of options in the neighborhood to pick up organic produce, ethnic foods, snacks, grains, and pre-packaged foods all in one place. These large grocery chains take profits away from the community, in order to pay producers and suppliers abroad and throughout the U.S. With over 70 percent of the money spent on food in Oakland traveling outside the city’s boundaries, the Produce Market will hopefully be one of many local food businesses to keep revenue in the community. While organizations such as the Mandela Foods Cooperative and People’s Grocery aim to increase access to healthy food in West-Oakland, increasing incentives for local food businesses throughout the rest of the city are another viable way of attacking rising obesity rates.
So why sell mainly organic products? The Produce Market’s owners are entrepreneurs that know a good business opportunity when they see one. “It is something that is good for the neighborhood and the people, and there is nothing like it around here,” says Abdul. They knew that they were tapping into a lucrative market by selling organic and Abdul plans on the Produce Market being a successful business. “We wanted a nice, clean place for people to shop. No one loiters outside and hassles our customers, I make sure of it.”The Market sells prepared sandwiches, quesadillas, and burritos for quick meals on the go, as well as more unusual fare such as fresh injera bread and unroasted coffee beans for only $3.99 a pound from Asmara, a near-by Ethiopian market.
According to Abdul, the Market’s customer base is ethnically diverse but currently much of his business is from students and youth. He hopes in the future that more local residents will frequent the market. There are a lot of public transportation options close to the store, which not only increases foot traffic for Abdul, but is a necessary component in creating a sustainable food system in which residents have access to healthy foods. Nearly 29 percent of Alameda county residents are food insecure, or lack access to healthy, affordable food, and this is an issue of particular importance throughout the city of Oakland.
Residents have been waiting for more stores to offer healthy foods and organic products in the Temescal area for quite a while. Deborah Ching works around the corner from the Market, and she is grateful to have an alternative to Walgreens to grab a healthy snack. “Not a day goes by that I don’t get thanked for opening the store. People are so excited,” says Abdul.
The Temescal Produce Market is open seven days a week from 8am to 9pm.
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