While The City Sleeps

In the wee hours of the morning, wholesalers at the Detroit Produce Terminal and the Eastern Market are busy unloading trucks and stocking their shelves, preparing for another day of selling fresh fruit and vegetables. For the most part, they are immune to the city’s traumatic bankruptcy and declining urban population, as forklifts cruise loading docks, and buyers and sellers seal their early-morning deals.

As pronounced as the economic and political turmoil of Detroit have been in the last few years, it hasn’t changed the fundamental need for food—especially the substantial demand for fresh produce—for the metro area’s 4.3 million residents. Though much has been said about Detroit’s dwindling population (it fell from tenth in national rankings to 18), development and the announced arrival of several retail chains hope to lure people back to its environs.

Fabrizio Casini, director of produce and floral operations for Southfield-based Hillers Markets says the job hasn’t always been easy. “In the last year, we saw the [retail] market coming back up, slowly but surely,” he says. “Three or four years ago, it was a nightmare.” Though most Hillers locations are in affluent areas of Detroit, Casini concedes, “We lost some business, but not as much as other people.”

Detroit’s Terminal Markets
The Detroit Produce Terminal, the younger of the city’s two markets, was founded in 1929. “There’s a lot of business here,” commented Nate Stone, COO of Detroit Terminal-based Ben B. Schwartz & Sons, Inc. “This market is still so viable; if there’s anything people should know, it’s that they can come down here with an empty truck or trailer and leave with it full—with an incredible selection and quality produce every day.” Stone believes much of the market’s strength comes from the area’s “incredible retailers,” who recognize the value of the terminal and support it.

The Eastern Market, just over six miles northeast of the Detroit Terminal Market, is run by the nonprofit Eastern Market Corporation and serves both wholesale and retail customers. In recent years, the Eastern Market has increased its focus on direct consumer sales to help the city’s disadvantaged residents. With much of the region’s population eligible for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Eastern Market began processing SNAP purchases for fruit and vegetables.

The Eastern Market’s response was also meant as a preventive measure, to keep Detroit from sliding further into “food desert” territory. The closure of several supermarkets left residents with few food options, and made Detroit, according to the USDA, “the largest city in the country without a single full-service supermarket within its boundaries.” Shoppers, for the most part, were forced to buy food at convenience stores or filling stations.