Halifax municipal councillors have decided to get into the produce business and support a project that will bring affordable fruits and vegetables to low-income communities this winter.

The 16 councillors at Tuesday's regional council meeting voted unanimously to support the next incarnation of the Mobile Food Market.

The project was first piloted last summer in the form of a Halifax Transit bus that was converted to hold boxes of discount produce instead of passengers.

The bus visited select communities every two weeks and market-goers mingled outside while they waited to board and buy groceries.

The proposal for the winter market is slightly different.

It calls for an indoor market in north-end Halifax, Fairview and North Preston, and mini food boxes to be ordered in advance and distributed in Spryfield and East Preston.

Also, some of the market days would happen on Wednesdays instead of Saturdays.

In the summer pilot, market-goers mingled outside while they waited to board the bus and buy groceries. (Sydney MacLennan)

Need city funding

Ali Shaver, the healthy built environment co-ordinator with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, said she and her fellow advisory team members had already secured the funding to run a scaled-back version of the winter market, but they needed money from the city to run the project in full.

On Tuesday, councillors agreed to provide a city vehicle and other supports for the winter pilot. They also asked staff to investigate the long-term viability of the project.

The 16-week project will launch Feb. 25 in north-end Halifax and Fairview, and Mar. 1 in Spryfield, East Preston and North Preston.

In a survey of 281 summer market-goers, 75 per cent said they ate more fruits and vegetables as a result of the project. (Sydney MacLennan)

Successful summer market

Shaver said they had "way more customers" at the summer markets than they had planned for, and they were "really thrilled" with the impact of the pilot project.

In a survey of 281 market-goers, 93 per cent of respondents said the summer markets helped increased their access to produce, Shaver said, and 75 per cent said they ate more fruits and vegetables as a result of the project.

The produce, which is purchased from Atlantic Superstore and Elmridge Farm Ltd., is sold at prices that are comparable to those found at discount grocery stores, such as No Frills, she said.