NEWS

Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery to expand

David Dykes
ddykes@greenvillenews.com

The Swamp Rabbit Café and Grocery has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture that its owners say will help the local grocer more than double in size and increase its ability to act as a regional food hub.

Cyclists bike the Swamp Rabbit Trail next to the Swamp Rabbit Cafe and Grocery.

The Swamp Rabbit's owners will contribute a matching amount of $63,368 to the grant from the USDA's Local Food Promotion Program, bringing the total to $163,368, and increasing the capacity to buy, store, process, promote and sell local foods in the Upstate.

In addition, several new jobs will be created.

“We’ve always planned on increasing our capacity to buy more foods from our farmers, but for a small business like ours, raising the capital to do that could take years," said Mary Walsh, the grocer's co-owner. "This grant will allow us to make these improvements now.”

The grocer plans to expand from its current 2,600 square feet to 6,100 square feet. The new space will create a more efficient delivery area for farmers, expand the current kitchen area and equipment and add additional walk-in cooler and freezer space, owners say.

USDA officials say the federal funding will expand the cafe and grocery store operations by investing in storage and processing equipment.

The additions and expansions will allow the business to increase its capacity to purchase local goods by 50 percent, adding at least another 20 new local suppliers, according to the owners.

The Swamp Rabbit Café and Grocery sources products from small family farms as locally as possible, including but not limited to local produce, meats, and dairy products. It works with nearly 150 local farmers and producers to supply the Greenville area and has been the first wholesale account for many budding new farms and local food distributors.

Since its opening in 2011 on Cedar Lane Road, the SRCG has helped revitalize the immediate area along the Swamp Rabbit Trail. In efforts to encourage healthy eating, the grocery accepts and encourages the use of the EBT/SNAP program benefits. The federal grant will help expand marketing to reach lower-income customers, increase awareness that EBT/SNAP benefits are accepted and offer choices for a healthier lifestyle, the cafe and grocery owners say.

The expansion and grant will help create additional kitchen facilities, allowing the business to produce more products from local ingredients, such as its house-made pesto and ready-to-eat items, owners say.

The additional space also will serve as a resource to farmers to create products to sell in the SRCG or on their own, owners say. They also say the kitchen will be conducive to in-house cooking classes to teach home cooks how to use local and seasonal ingredients to create their own meals from scratch.

The USDA's grant program, begun in 2014, has funded 351 projects totaling $24.6 million to support supply-chain activities including processing, aggregating, storing or distributing local and regional food.