A market-style emergency food assistance facility — with a drive-through, curb-side pick up and fresh produce and dairy — is in the works to serve metro Detroit families struggling to put food on the table.

The Detroit-based nonprofit, Gleaners Community Food Bank, announced the launch of Fresh! by Gleaners, a $4.8 million project expected to open early next year. The project, unveiled Tuesday at Gleaners’ Women’s Power Breakfast, has been years in the making and aims to combine service models that have worked in the past under one umbrella. The announcement comes at a time when Gleaners, and other metro Detroit organizations, have seen a spike in need for food assistance, after pandemic-era programs waned and food costs increased. This year, Gleaners has seen a more than 30% increase in the meal packages it distributes.

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“There isn’t one face of hunger … it can be any face and it can be people in any circumstance you can imagine, and so we’re trying to eliminate as many barriers to access as possible all in one place,” Gerry Brisson, president and CEO of Gleaners, told the Free Press.

Fresh! by Gleaners expects to offer dairy, eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables in a facility modeled after a store so people can choose what they need and want. Guests can pick up pre-ordered food curbside or from refrigerated lockers, so that it’s a more convenient alternative for them. The facility will also have an awning for curbside pickup and for mobile distribution outside of the market hours. People can use the service as often as daily.

Construction is slated to begin this summer and the facility is expected to open early 2025. The 5,247 square-foot project will be located on 8 Mile in Warren, east of Ryan Road. Gleaners chose the spot, which will primarily serve Warren and Detroit, based on how many people live there and food insecurity rates.

Nearly 87,000 people live in a three-mile radius of the site, with a little under a third of residents experiencing poverty, according to the news release, which cites 2021 U.S. Census data. Gleaners estimates that it can serve about 5,000 households a month with the new project.

Gleaners has seen an increase in need for food assistance over the past year.

In the first six months of the nonprofit’s 2024 fiscal year — October to March — Gleaners distributed more than 99,000 meal packages, up 34% or about 74,000 meals, from the same time period last fiscal year. Meal packages contain about 35 pounds of food for a family of four.

Gleaners’ partners, including soup kitchens and agencies, served 160,099 households during the first half of its 2024 fiscal year, a 21% spike compared with 132,563 households last fiscal year.

“When you look at the budget of a low-income household and you look at food, rent and utilities, all of those are going up, have gone up and continue to go up. Well, they’re going up faster than the wages of a typical low-income worker. Now, we know that a lot of the people that we see, at least one person in the household is employed.” Brisson said.

Sixty-nine percent of U.S. adults said their household expenses increased in 2023, but only 23% said their income also increased, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Nearly half reported that their income stayed about the same.

So far, Fresh! by Gleaners is backed by $4.3 million in donations from funders, and the nonprofit is still seeking contributions for the project.

“Over the past several years, Gleaners has engaged in listening sessions with nearly a dozen local partner agencies to discuss where there are gaps in service and how we can incorporate their feedback into the model to help close those gaps,” said Judith McNeeley, vice president of community engagement for Gleaners, in a news release. “The feedback has been incredibly positive as a complement to the important work our partners are doing every day to nourish the community.”