Some Philly produce trucks have been selling fresh fruits and vegetables for 30 years. The city wants you to know more about them.

Finding fresh, high-quality produce in Philadelphia can be a frustrating and wallet-emptying endeavor.

But that’s only if you haven’t met someone like Solomon Tsegay, a produce truck operator in West Philly.

No matter the season, Tsegay’s truck at 48th and Spruce Streets has an array of fresh fruits and vegetables for sale at low prices — he charges 50 cents for an apple, about half the price at the nearest grocery store. The truck has been a West Philly institution for almost 30 years, first operated by Tsegay’s younger brother. Tsegay helped his brother run the business after he immigrated to Philadelphia from Ethiopia in the early 2000s, and took it over full time in 2010.

“I love this community,” he said. Tsegay likes that his job lets him meet so many people from different countries and backgrounds, including some neighborhood “characters,” he said.

“I respect them, and they respect me.”

Every day, Tsegay wakes up at 2:30 a.m. so he can be at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market by 3 a.m., where he’ll see other produce truck operators he knows from around the city. He shops until about 6 a.m., loading his truck by himself with pounds of produce. Then, after returning home to eat breakfast and drop his three kids off at school, Tsegay opens his truck by 10 a.m. and operates until 8 or 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

The produce truck business is a difficult one. The margins are thin, and the days are long. But they serve an important role in Philadelphia, where nearly 250,000 people are food insecure.

It’s why this summer, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health began a “Philly Loves Fresh” campaign to promote and support several produce trucks like Tsegay’s in West and Southwest Philly. In its partnership with the truck owners, the Department of Public Health has created branding and marketing materials for each business, promoted the trucks and owners on social media, and given grants to be used for repairs or other business improvements.

“This is a healthier, more cost-effective, fresher way to get produce,” said Ousmane Diarra, the produce truck coordinator for the Department of Public Health. “And it’s very convenient. We just gotta let people know that a lot of these operators are out there and support them as well, invest in them, so they can keep going and eventually expand.”

Diarra, who came up with the idea for the campaign, grew up in Southwest Philly, where produce trucks were an integral piece of his life. His Malian immigrant parents felt more comfortable shopping at their local produce truck, where the business owner was also from Mali. It wasn’t until Diarra got older that he realized most people tend to primarily use grocery stores for their produce.

“I just assumed everybody used them,” he said about the trucks. “They’re legit businesses that have permits, that have licenses. They go through the same process as storefronts.”

The program was informed by the health department’s 2019 research, which found that the majority of the city’s food stores sell primarily unhealthy foods. The report also noted that the proportion of mostly unhealthy stores went up in a neighborhood as its income went down.

The findings gave a more nuanced look at food insecurity, “food deserts,” and “food apartheid,” which suggest an overall lack of access to healthy foods. Their research indicated instead that Philadelphia’s problem is an oversupply of unhealthy offerings.

“There’s always, I think, more unhealthy food than healthy. And that’s a big part of what we’ve been trying to do … how do we increase options to healthy food?” said Jennifer Robinson, food policy coordinator with the Department of Public Health.

Robinson and Diarra said that while some truck owners were apprehensive at first about partnering with the city, they’ve given positive feedback about the program and what it’s done for their businesses. Philly Loves Fresh promotions will continue through the end of October, and will pick up again in the spring, when Robinson said that the program aims to include truck operators from other parts of the city.

Tsegay has noticed an uptick in his business since the campaign started. That includes some new customers who live only a couple blocks away from his truck, but told him they never knew it existed until they saw a Philly Loves Fresh video.

He said that he loves to serve his West Philly community, even through the slow winter season and the long days on the job.

“I think I did a good [job],” he said. “It feels good [to do] stuff for the community.”