Kashi Sehgal is a serial and social entrepreneur with a background in technology and international business — an unexpected foundation that’s helped her become a passionate advocate and connector in the local food world. 

“My background is not in food,” she said. “It’s not in local supply chains. I’ve worked alongside global supply chains at some of my more corporate jobs, but that’s been sourcing from factories in India and China, thinking about containers on the sea, not trucks on the ground.”

That changed in 2020, when she launched Retaaza, a name she came to by combining “refresh” and “taaza,” a Hindi word for fresh. “I started Retaaza during the pandemic when farmers were throwing out produce by the record tons of pounds,” Sehgal said. “I couldn’t understand why we were throwing out all this food. Our mission is to connect local food, especially from local farmers, to people in our communities who need to eat healthy food and can’t access it.”

Georgia agriculture is more than just peaches. Agribusiness is the leading economic sector in the state, contributing about $80 billion annually to the state’s economy. Georgia’s 42,400 farms top the nation in production of broiler chickens, peanuts, pecans, blueberries and spring onions. The state also produces large amounts of watermelons, cucumbers, sweet corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes and cabbage.

Retaaza’s model is to “rescue” produce from farms that can’t sell it commercially. Retaaza purchases it and then distributes this produce locally in Georgia. So far, they’ve been able to donate about over 600,000 pounds of food. The company makes its revenue selling produce to restaurants, hotels, schools and hospitals, as well as to companies as a wellness benefit. “We’re creating the shortest supply chain possible, not the longest,” Sehgal said.

In 2021, Retaaza began to work with Clinch Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in Clinch County, Georgia. With support of a grant from the federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) administered by Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit community development financial institution, Retaaza became the supply and operational partner for Clinch Memorial Hospital’s Mobile Market. The market is a van outfitted with refrigeration and storage space to bring Georgia-grown produce to Clinch County communities.

Clinch County is Georgia’s third-largest county and has fewer than 7,000 residents. More than a fifth of residents live in poverty, and the median household income is about $20,000 behind the state average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In March 2023, it had just one grocery store within 824 square miles. Sehgal has described it as Georgia’s most food-insecure county.

One way to fight food insecurity is to bring food to people. For a year, the brightly painted “grocery store on wheels” brought produce to communities across Clinch County. “We had an amazing partner, and the community wanted it,” Sehgal said. “Local leaders were invested in its success.” Because Retaaza was buying food in bulk, it could streamline  transportation and cut costs. 

The mobile market did not give away food for free. “We prefer to make it cheap and affordable,” Sehgal said. “Our philosophy is that we want to give people dignity in terms of choice.”

“Shoppers loved it,” Sehgal said. “They aren’t afraid to let you know what they want to see or what they want more of. Anytime we had honey and pecans, you just could not keep them on the shelf. People loved collards. They did not love kale, so we stopped doing that. Broccoli was not a big hit.”

Sehgal found that social media couldn’t compete with the word-of-mouth marketing and in-person connections made at the mobile market. And organizers realized the logistical challenges of serving a sparsely-populated rural area with far-flung communities.

After about a year, organizers decided that the market had run its course. “These things shouldn’t be intended to operate in these places forever,” Sehgal said. “We’re looking for a tool that can be more of a permanent fix in these neighborhoods.”

The lessons learned in Clinch County have today helped shape  a handful of pop-up markets run by Retaaza throughout Georgia.  Those markets offer doubled SNAP benefits, and  Retaaza is working to add community health services, such as blood pressure screenings.

Eventually, Sehgal hopes the markets develop into true community resource hubs. “When people line up because there’s a resource in their neighborhood, it’s exciting and exhilarating, but when  you take a step back and understand why they’re queuing up, it’s heartbreaking,” Sehgal said. “We should have access to basic human rights, which include nutritious food. It’s exciting and we had a lot of fun, but we shouldn’t have to do this. You can’t get too happy with yourself. These are almost Bandaid fixes.”