For most young, starry-eyed entrepreneurs, growing their startups and seeing rapid results is a top priority.
That’s not the case for Josh Trautwein, founder of Fresh Truck, the mobile market that brings healthy food options to low-income neighborhoods in Boston. The Northeastern alumnus candidly shared with me that he’s in it for the long-run until he’ll view his nonprofit as helping people adopt healthier lifestyles. He’s seen individuals take steps towards clean eating, but he’s looking for more – even if it takes 10 years.
Where it all began
Fresh Truck started while Trautwein was working at MGH’s Healthcare Center in Charlestown as part of Northeastern’s co-op program. He explained that he was helping with nutrition education there when the only grocery store in the area was being shut down for a year. Suddenly, the families with whom he was working had nowhere to shop for healthy food, thwarting their efforts to eat better.
Trautwein found a solution. Taking a retrograde school bus and converting it into a mobile marketplace, Fresh Truck caters to the Brighton, Mattapan, Dorchester, East Boston, Charlestown and (of course) Northeastern neighborhoods.
“It’s probably going to take a decade, and we’re resigned to that for sure.”
“Food trucks are so popular, so why not use them for something bigger? We turned this area into a market and started promoting health in parts of Boston with limited access to fresh food options, ” Trautwein told me when we first met.
In the past couple of months, Fresh Truck has rolled out its second bus and has had Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts back the startup as a sponsor. Now, one bus sells affordable, healthy food around Boston, while the other tackles more educational initiatives throughout town. For example, Fresh Truck holds cooking demos, pop up markets at larger events and consultations with nutritionists.
Since these developments, Fresh Truck has been focused on taking what they’ve garnered so far – their partners, business plan and overall insights – and are working to strengthen their operations. Trautwein elaborated, saying that rapid growth isn’t the way he wants to go in the next six months or so. Instead, he wants to focus on their current efforts and go deeper – the only way to make a sustainable impact on the Boston community, in his eyes.
“We’re in a great position to help with the food access component within the health care system,” Trautwein said. “With all of the work being done by other organizations, we still need to solve the food access problem for their efforts to work.”
“So if programs are working on health literacy with a mom-to-be, they can educate her all they want about having a healthy lifestyle, but if she can’t find the right foods, she won’t be able to take care of easy things like iron deficiency,” he added. “And then the programs don’t work.”
Keeping it real
For someone with such a lofty, idealistic vision, Trautwein is refreshingly realistic. When I asked if he had any success stories of people turning their health around, he looked me right in the eye and gave an authoritative, “No.”
“We’re trying to undo a really ingrained behavioral set of habits, the way people eat and shop,” he said. “If anyone thinks they can do that in a year, they have the wrong mentality.”
“That’s equivalent to having an alcoholic saying they didn’t drink for a day,” he continued. “A lot of organizations are driven by numbers. How much people know doesn’t change their lifestyle; it means they’re retaining your information. We want to be measuring the right things.”
Trautwein wants to look at more accurate indicators of change. He maintains that data pertaining to the physical health of people in Boston neighborhoods will be the real sign that Fresh Truck is making a difference.
“We’re not going to say that we made an impact until we see how much food we’ve sold and determine if that correlates with the health outcomes in the neighborhoods we serve,” he stated.
This is an ambitious goal, and Trautwein recognizes that. His mindset is all about taking action now and giving the community the tools to change, all while knowing that it’s a long-term investment whose effects may not be seen for some time.
“It’s probably going to take a decade, and we’re resigned to that for sure,” he concluded. “But that’s what it takes to make real, sustainable change, and that’s what we want.”
Image via Josh Trautwein. Photo Credit Christina Allan.
