Meet the organization driving change in the Charleston food economy

The Lowcountry is meeting Nell, who is making her appearance in each corner of Charleston.  

Nell is slowly making a name for herself as Lowcountry Street Grocery’s mobile farmers market bus, but she is only the surface of a group on a mission to change the face of food security in the region. 

In 2016, Lindsey Barrow raised funds on Kickstarter and began reconstructing a school bus into Nell. At the time, Barrow was getting into farming and had moved back into the Charleston food and beverage industry after spending time in Hawaii working for a local representative on a project to address obesity. 

After spending two years waiting tables, farming and building a business plan, Barrow got the bus into action and began working out of a partner warehouse doing 50 to 75 deliveries a week as well as occasional pop-ups of Nell.  

“Our entire business model is based on ancient Japanese principles of ‘bend, don’t break,’” Barrow said. “We are very much like bamboo.” 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Barrow said their deliveries waitlist grew to 2,000 overnight. Lowcountry Street Grocery grew 910% that year. 

Buying from about 300 different local producers and farmers, LSG contributed about $1 million to their sales last year, Barrow, founder and CEO of LSG, said. 

LSG doesn’t grow any of the produce but creates a direct line between the farmers and people in the Lowcountry, servicing roughly 150 families per week for subsidized produce. 

Barrow and his partner, Olivia Myers, are now honing in more than ever to get fresh food into low-income and low-access areas, dialing back on the frequency of Nell appearances.  

“There’s huge gap of folks that don’t necessarily need free food and that don’t necessarily spend their entire food budget at the food bank,” Barrow said. “That’s the chunk of folks that we hit the home run with are folks that need a little bit of assistance, sort of like falling on hard times, but don’t necessarily want to lose their pride.” 

Snap EBT is accepted throughout LSG initiatives. When people spend $5 through Snap EBT, they get $15 more to spend on top of that, coming out with $20 worth of product, Myers said. 

Additionally, the prices for products vary depending on their purpose in the area they are in. For low-income neighborhoods, lower prices will be enforced compared to when the group brings the bus to events and higher-income neighborhoods.    

Barrow said LSG coins the phrase “Robin Hood economy” when describing its practices. The organization leverages the high-demand sales to pay for the discount in areas they lower the price for.   

“Charleston is this really special place because there is so much food culture,” Barrow said. “This Robin Hood economy thing is based also on making something really cool and exciting and fun for everyone.” 

Barrow said the South Carolina Department of Agriculture also includes LSG in a program which reimburses the company for all produce it purchases from South Carolina farmers and donate, again helping fund their efforts to provide lower prices. 

“Tourists come here and eat all this incredible food and we’re getting accolade after accolade,” Barrow said. “Literally a mile north of some of these awards, children are living further beneath the poverty line than anywhere else in the state.” 

People often ask Barrow and Myers if all products are local and organic. Myers said LSG prioritizes local produce throughout the Southeast, but as seasons vary, all local products aren’t realistic to get a full balance of options. 

Considering a large portion of who they serve struggles with food security, they can’t afford to cut out produce such as citrus, avocados or bananas for a portion of the year, Barrow said. 

“Most of the farmers that we work with hyper-locally in the Charleston area are growing what  we call ‘beyond organic,’” Barrow said. “They’re doing all of the measures to get the organic certification, but they don’t have the money to go through the process.” 

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The pair has added two branches of LSG, Community Support Grocery and GroceryRX. 

Community Support Grocery is a delivery platform and makes up 90% of the business for LSG, Barrow said. CSG is a pay-it-forward system, so if one of the people who usually get deliveries were to cancel one week, that money can go to into the pot that helps provide free groceries for others.   

Last year, CSG gave 6,300 of those pay-it-forward bundles to low-income families in the region, Barrow said. They expect to see about 7,000 bundles given out next year.   

Myers is the founder and one of the dieticians for GroceryRX, which works to help people with diet-related illness. The program lasts for six months as well as an option for a 12-week class on nutrition education, Myers said.  

The purpose of GroceryRX is to use food education to help lower people’s blood pressure, blood sugar, get off prescription medication, and more. LSG currently has three dieticians on their staff and services are available through all public and most private insurances. 

All branches of LSG work from Tuesday to Friday each week with occasional pop-ups of the mobile farmer’s market.