By Sheldon Spackman

Former transit bus turned food market rolls back in to Red Deer

Jun 2, 2018 | 4:16 PM

A former Red Deer Transit bus turned farm-market-on-wheels made its debut at the Public Market on Saturday.

Edmonton-based CD Fresh Express features Alberta grown fresh fruits and vegetables and at prices that aim to better your local grocery store.

President and CEO Andrew Lineker says he gets most of his produce from 35 chemical-free Alberta farmers but sometimes will buy direct from B.C. and other regions for items that may be out of season in our province.

“I was approached by the 35 farmers and they just wanted to move their product,” says Lineker. “For various reasons, they couldn’t get into markets and the other side of it was finding a way to move that product. I found a video on Youtube from the United States and I figured, ‘Well if they can do it in the States, why can’t we do it up here?’ so I looked online, found the bus for sale, bought the bus and pulled the seats out and away we went.”

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He says in Edmonton where CD Fresh Express spends most of its time, they see between 1,200 – 2,900 people through the bus each day.

“I supply produce to seniors primarily as well as food deserts and small towns that have actually lost their grocery stores,” Lineker explains. “People, they like the fact that I buy as local as I do, they like the pricing. I try to be mindful that they’re on a fixed income, so I try to keep everything as budget friendly as I can.”

“There’s a big farm out in Lacombe that I deal with, Warburg, Stettler, just from all over the province,” continues Lineker. “We’ve been coming to the market for the past couple of years but we were coming out of a little, tiny SUV and a tent and this is the first time with the bus, we’re about 13 weeks old with the bus.”

If conditions are right, Lineker hopes to bring the bus back to Red Deer again sometime.

“It’s expensive to run the bus, so as long as we can cover diesel costs and the demand seems to be there, I have absolutely no problem coming back to Red Deer,” he admits. “Everybody seems to be very friendly and very excited about it.”

In terms of the produce you can find on CD Fresh Express, Lineker describes it as anything that’s within season.

“I also get the B.C. fruit as long as it’s in season,” he explains. “Everything from B.C. cherries, to apricots, peaches. On the vegetable side, I get fresh tomatoes, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, turnips, we also have a very small bakery area which is also an Alberta bakery, it’s out of Edmonton.”   

As for the future, Lineker hopes to expand the CD Fresh Express fleet at some point.

“I’m hoping to be able to put a couple more buses on the road to be able to service the areas like smaller towns and communities that have lost their grocery stores and I’m definitely a firm advocate of supporting local farms.”

To learn more about the schedule for CD Fresh Express, visit their Facebook Page here.