Tiffany Terrell: A Better Way Grocers

Albany, Georgia

Driving Nutritious Food into a Food Desert

In the summer of 2019, Terrell looked around and realized that she lived in a community where grocery stores were closing and many residents had no access to food, especially healthy fresh food. After attending a conference and hearing stories of other communities working to address the “food deserts” that surrounded them, Terrell decided she had to do something.

In August of 2019, she and her husband, Tommie Terrell, bought a bus from Facebook Marketplace and, with the help of her stepfather, retrofitted it as a one aisle mobile grocery store. “It was really an old milk truck. We just had a vision of getting food into the community.”

“We put healthy food on our bus. We go out into the community and our bus pulls right up to their apartment complexes or their front doors. Some get on the bus. If they can’t get on the bus, we walk up and down and get them the items they need.”

A Better Way Grocers was born.

In November of 2019, the mobile grocery was licensed to accept EBT and food stamps and their work expanded. They retrofitted a bigger bus and then “COVID hit.”

“COVID just blew us into a whole other level because we were working with the most vulnerable people.  We just hit the ground running with whatever we could come up with. We had trucks coming in 3-4 times/ week. We had people calling from all over for us to deliver food to their families that lived in Albany because they didn’t want the seniors going into the grocery stores. We were delivering everywhere.”

A Better Way Grocers focused on provided food to those most in need of healthy, affordable food.  Over 70% of the people served by the mobile grocery do not have transportation. “They often rely on places like the Dollar store, which sells mostly junk food, for their groceries.” When Terrell began to dig deeper, she found that 61% of her clients had diabetes, 71% had high blood pressure and 66% had high cholesterol, all diseases that are highly impacted by lack of a healthy diet.

“There’s a link between these dollar stores and low food access areas and the health of these communities. We started thinking about how we could be different.”

Terrell designed an Eat Well, Be Well program to educate residents about healthy food and to teach people how to cook healthy food like Brussel sprouts and zucchini.  A Better Way Grocers listened to the needs of those they served. When they realized that many of their elderly clients couldn’t eat the food because of problems with their teeth, the team supplied them with blenders and recipes.

The mobile grocery store has now purchased a second bus.  As the programs for COVID food stamps have ended, things have “gotten more grim for our seniors.”

Clients and family members call Terrell every week to make sure she is coming. “We’re providing them with such basic things we take for granted. They depend on that. I think about my grandmother. She has my mom and her other siblings to help. Our people don’t have that. I can get in my car and go do whatever I want to do. These people don’t have that. So, anything I can do to make life easier for them, I have to do it.”

Terrell’s work flows out of her faith and belief in helping others. “I was raised Baptist and taught the principle of “You help your neighbor, period. You live a life that’s worth living.”  Terrell is also an educator and believes in the value of knowledge, training others in how to cook healthy meals and make good nutritional choices.

Currently, Terrell does not receive a salary from the mobile grocery store. The program itself is self-sustaining, grossing $84,000 in programs and sales. “But all that goes into the food and keeping the bus running.” A Better Way Grocers has partnered with local and regional programs like Wholesome Wave Georgia to provide locally grown food at a discount.

“This has truly been a labor of love. Food is one of those things that brings people together.”

Read more about the Invested Faith model and how you can be involved in supporting Invested Faith Fellows like Tiffany.

Thanks to our friends at Good Faith Media and videographer Cliff Vaughn for collaborating with us on the video detailing Tiffany’s work. Read more about the ride along on the grocery bus and the video shoot here.

Profile by Anita Flowers