If you aren’t looking for them, produce stands can blend into the landscape as you drive by.
They’re at once timeless and outdated. A remnant of a Mayberry era where towns had one stoplight and youths met at the soda shoppe. They’re also a signature of the modern “local food movement” that has emerged in the U.S. over the past 25 years.
For reasons nostalgic or nutritious, local produce stands very much have a presence in the Golden Triangle.
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For Mona McComic, roadside produce has been a part of her life since she was 10.
“I’ve been doing this for 12 years,” the 22-year-old West Point native said. “It started with just me, my dad and my brother selling watermelons in a flat-bed truck.”
Business has gone well.
Now, the McComics have expanded: They have a second stand by Lowes in Columbus and the West Point stand now displays watermelons, peaches, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, cherries and nectarines.
McComic is tan and friendly, a common theme among roadside sellers who spend all day in the sun, chatting with friends and strangers.
That’s about all they have in common though.
Different stands sell different produce, from different farms, at different times of the day and week.
Some, like the ones that offer Chilton County, Alabama, peaches, only sell for the 10 summer weeks that are prime peach season, whereas Richard Rast’s stand, set up on Main Street in Columbus, can be found 11 months of the year. (Rast likes to hunt in January.)
And everyone sells for a different reason.
For Billy Petty, who sells watermelons, tomatoes and more in Starkville, it’s a way to relax and take a break from working in the barbecue place he owns.
For Hayes and Mattox Heredia, it’s a summer job.
For James Daniel, “It’s really just something to do.”
Daniel works out of a lot on Main Street in West Point, right past a set of railroad tracks before High Street. His stand is not so much a stand as a F-150, borrowed from a friend, with maroon paint peeling and watermelons in the back.
Daniel has no umbrella or chair. The only thing he brings with him is his Bible, which overflows with sticky notes. It sits on the dashboard, ready for immediate access in case someone who stops for a watermelon needs more transcendent nourishment as well.
“Some people have problems,” Daniel said. “I like being able to listen and tell them about the Lord.”
He is a lean man in a wide-brimmed fisherman’s hat and for the last year and a half, he has turned out about twice a week to the same lot. Selling produce is not about money for him. In fact, he barely profits at all.
“If I buy the watermelons for $4.50, I’ll sell them for $5,” he said.
Daniel’s “if” about watermelon prices is telling. Prices for produce fluctuate. It depends on the weather and the supply and demand that week.
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In fact, so much in the roadside produce business “just depends” — on produce grown by someone else; on customers driving by who have three seconds to decide whether they will stop; and most importantly, on Mother Nature.
What’s your schedule like, how long are you out here every day?
“It just depends on how fast everything sells,” McComic said.
Do you always have the same fruits and vegetables for sale?
“It just depends on what’s good. I don’t buy anything that wouldn’t be good enough for my own table,” Rast said.
How much do the watermelons cost?
“It just depends on how much I buy them for,” Daniel said.
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It’s a far cry from most structured professions. Between air-conditioning, supermarkets and paved highways, many people can get through the day without realizing their dependence on the whims of the natural world.
Not in the roadside produce business.
A seller’s day is regulated by the sunrise, which is when their stand’s lights turn on. They sit in the heat for as many as 11 hours a day, until the sun goes down and takes the light with it. If it rains, they pack up. Not many people stop to buy produce in the rain.
This dependence on nature seems to breed flexibility that borders on resignation.
Nature giveth, nature taketh away.
For example, last year the peach crop was bad in Chilton County, Alabama. There were hailstorms and freezes.
So the Chilton County peach stands — which are located in Columbus and Starkville, and operated by the Griffin and Ballengers families — did not have peaches.
They were open only one full week all summer.
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Pride in their product is another undercurrent in the attitudes of produce sellers.
Richard Rast displays a cut-open watermelon on a table so passing cars can see what they could buy.
Billy Petty extols the freshness of roadside produce that you do not get in a supermarket.
Mona McComic’s nose wrinkled at the idea of buying produce at a chain grocery store.
“It’s just not the same,” she said.
She is not wrong.
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa compiled U.S. Department of Agriculture data to see how many miles were traveled by produce to reach a Chicago market. The average apple traversed 1,555 miles. The typical tomato journeyed 1,369 miles. Particular peaches commuted 1,674 miles.
When produce travels that far before it reaches the table, there are averse consequences.
This process expends 4 to 17 times more fuel than if the produce had been regional or local, according to the study.
And, the longer produce goes uneaten, the less nutrients it retains. For example, antioxidant activity in apples begins to decline after three months of cold storage. The average apple in the supermarket is 14 months old, according to research by author Martin Lindstrom.
Finally, produce is often picked prematurely when it will be transported so it can be stored longer, which lessens the flavor and nutrients of the product.
In contrast, local produce is picked at peak ripeness, since it will be sold and eaten in a matter of days.
But when both sellers and customers were asked why they preferred roadside produce to that in a supermarket, their answers were more subjective than the environmental and health benefits.
They want to avoid lines at the grocery store. They impulse-stopped after driving by and seeing a particularly red tomato. They like stopping at the stand and chatting for a few minutes with a produce seller they’ve known for years or five minutes.
Roadside produce stands are about produce, but not solely about produce. They are a connection to the earth, to the past, to people.
“The best way I can explain it is, you actually get more for your money,” McComic said. “It’s personal.”
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