How I scored cheap produce from a mobile market in my Phoenix neighborhood

Farm Express mobile markets bring affordable produce to neighborhoods around the Phoenix area. Here’s how to find one. 

This story first appeared in Rent Check PHX, a biweekly newsletter made for Phoenix renters, written by someone who’s lived it. Sign up for it here.

I like to accomplish as many tasks as possible by walking. It’s good for the environment, it helps me move my body, and it saves me from dealing with stressful Phoenix traffic. 

I’m lucky that I can run a number of errands on foot where I live in the Garfield neighborhood downtown. But grocery shopping isn’t quite as convenient—the big stores are further away than I’d like, and the smaller shops nearby have high markups. 

So when I found out there’s a bus that brings cheap, local produce directly into neighborhoods, I had to check it out. 

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, I walked from my home to Aimright Ministries on 13th and Roosevelt streets, where the Farm Express bus—which is hard to miss with its brightly colored design—was parked. As I walked up, the two people working there waved and welcomed me to the small market they had set up in the lot. 

I was surprised by how wide the selection was. The tables held berries, citrus, bags of salad mix, potatoes, onions, and more—lots of the items I regularly buy at Fry’s each week. 

I picked up a bag of baby carrots, a grapefruit, a broccoli crown, and green onions for a total of $4.25. When I compared prices to Fry’s and Safeway, I would have paid about $2 more for the same items.  

The whole experience was smooth and easy, and I walked home with the warm glow of someone who just scored a deal. I immediately cut up the grapefruit and squeezed some juice into a seltzer to cool off and enjoy the fresh taste. 

What Farm Express does

I first heard about the Farm Express mobile markets months ago—Copper Courier reporter Alyssa Bickle wrote a story about them in August—but I mistakenly thought they only served people based on their incomes. Luckily, one of my neighbors explained that anyone can shop there. 

She also pointed out something important: the more people shop there, the more likely the nonprofit will return to the neighborhood to meet demand. 

That matters in places like Garfield where many residents rent and may be on a tighter budget. There are also people who can’t drive or have limited mobility, making it tougher for them to get to a store. 

Farm Express was designed to solve exactly that problem. 

The program is operated by Activate Food Arizona, a nonprofit that “develops and deploys community-based food system solutions to improve the lives of all Arizonans.” Since launching, the program has reached over 150,000 people across the state.

Some of the produce comes from Arizona farms, while some comes from a wholesale distributor. Prices stay low because Farm Express sells the food at cost, without the markup that other retailers add on. 

The mobile markets accept SNAP benefits and Double Up Food Bucks, as well as cash, credit, and debit.

Three Farm Express buses travel around Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa each week, setting up shop in a location for one to two hours at a time. You can check its website for the monthly schedule and a ZIP code locator to find the closest stop to you.

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