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Economy

Healthy Harvest Opens in Downtown RI

WVIK News

A year and-a-half after it was first announced, and a year after it was supposed to open, a new grocery store is finally ready to open in downtown Rock Island. This week people can begin shopping at the Healthy Harvest Urban Farms Market on 2nd Avenue. 

 
Co-owner Chad Summers says downtown Rock Island is a "food desert," and that with all the people moving to the area, demand has grown for something more than just a convenience store. He'll sell organic products mostly grown by local farmers. 

"People are starting to figure out that their health is directly related to what they eat. I don't necessarily want to be known as a health food store, but as a store that serves nutritious food that you can become healthy by eating."

 The main reason for the long delay was financing - Summers started out thinking he could open the store for about 10,000 dollars from his own money. But with all the updating required by the building at 16-16 2nd Avenue, it ended up costing about 200,000 dollars. 

That money came from the Development Association of Rock Island, the city, friends, and a local farmer.

Healthy Harvest will also have a "whole food cafe" overseen by a registered dietician, and by next year he hopes to have seven full-time employees. 
 

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.