The Argus Farm Stop is officially a decade old. Co-owner Kathy Sample said it was “a little shocking” for her to realize that the business she runs with her husband has reached that milestone.
“It really did fly by because it was such an action packed ten years,” Sample explained. Sample said they were inspired to do this because they “knew that there was a huge problem in that farmers markets weren’t accessible for everybody – they were one day a week, people have busy schedules, and it’s just not how people shop anymore. … And at the same time we knew that there were places in western Ohio, called Local Roots .. which did a variation on what we eventually did. It’s a cooperative, but its farmer owned. All of the farmers got together and said ‘we need to have a better place to sell our stuff more regularly’ so that’s how it got started. We talked to them, and said we wanted to do this in Michigan, and they said yes, ‘we will help you’ … so that we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
The whole point is to cut out the middlemen of food distributing companies, major Agri-farm corporations and big box grocery store chains, to connect farmers within driving distance of A2 to their customers. It caters to farmers who already go to farmer’s markets but need additional customers like restaurants and outfits like this to remain economically viable. And so, their original location just west of the railroad tracks from downtown, at the corner of Liberty and 2nd, came into being in 2014.
“The quality at Argus is much fresher than you get at other grocery stores, the in season produce is amazing, and it has been consistent the entire time,” said Christine Veenstra, a customer who says she lives in the West End and has been shopping there since it opened.
Food can take up anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of a household’s carbon footprint, according to the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan. They estimated in a fact sheet last year that “production accounts for 68 percent of food emissions, while transportation accounts for five percent.”
While the overall carbon package coming from transporting food is tiny, the CSS wrote that “eliminating the transport of food for one year could save the greenhouse gas equivalent of driving 1,000 miles, while shifting to a vegetarian meal one day a week could save the equivalent of driving 1,160 miles.” This is what people mean when they say that eating locally is better for the climate.
It is also a win-win scenario for the farmers. Sample said that her business has helped funnel $4 million from Ann Arborites buying food in her stores to Ann Arbor area farmers in 2023 alone.
“If we were to supply to a fast food chain wholesale, the price we were going to get for our product is quite a bit less than what we would get at Argus. The beauty of Argus is that they let us set our own prices on a consignment basis, and what I try to do is set my price so that after Argus gets their cut out of the sale, my prices fall somewhere between retail and wholesale,” Scott Robertello, a co-owner of the Britton-based Kapnick Orchards, said.
Through Argus, they provide asparagus, strawberries, cherries, peaches, nectarines, pears, apples, plums, potatoes and cider “almost” year-round. “We certainly don’t have the carbon footprint of transporting food from California or Mexico. I would say the vast majority of farmers are within an hour of Ann Arbor, so your carbon footprint is a lot smaller getting this produce to market. …. I have about 50 or 60 acres of orchards, so I feel like orchards are a really positive thing we do. Those trees absorb a lot of the CO2 out the air and expel oxygen as part of their respiratory process. ”
Argus is also a throwback to the way grocery stores used to work nationwide before the 1950s, and still do in the inner neighborhoods of the largest cities; a model where every neighborhood has its own, small, locally or family owned grocery stores, which people frequent more often than in the suburban big box store model popularized with the advent of freeways and suburban sprawl.
This is why Argus fits into the 15 minute city concept, in which urbanists try to keep everything anyone could ever need within a 15 minute walk of every household. The City of Ann Arbor calls this the 20 minute neighborhood model.
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Argus was hit hard by the shutdowns that came with Covid-19 like just about every business was. But when people started ordering food online, they found that there was such a spike in their grocery delivery box business that they had to actually expand. In addition to their brick and mortar locations, Argus offers subscription based vegetable, flower or meat boxes.
This increase in demand, along with the reassessment of where people got food from that followed, led to the opening of a third location on Packard Avenue – just down the block from their café at the corner of Packard and Dewey, to a single story storefront near the corner of Packard and Woodlawn. This location feels the most like the typical grocery store most people are used to.
Food costs got supercharged as an issue during the pandemic and the inflation that resulted among supply chain shocks and the attempts to fix them, persisted as an issue that proved decisive to the 2024 election. The Department of Agriculture found last summer that the cost of food at home is going to increase by 2.3 percent nationwide this year, and another 2.0 percent next year; and this is on top of the 5% increase in “food a home” products last year, and the 11.4 percent increase that turbocharged the political sensitivity of grocery costs starting in 2022.
Prices at Argus can vary wildly, and while some of its prices are comparable to competitors, some of it is on the expensive end of the spectrum. But this is not to say that Argus is entirely for Ann Arbor’s wealthy and upper-middle class, especially if you pay close attention to prices.
Argus does participate in Double Up Food Bucks, a program that doubles the amount of purchasing power for Bridge or SNAP card users, if and when they choose to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. While this is capped at $20 per day in produce, it means that access to local, more sustainably sourced food doesn’t need to be a privilege for the affluent. The only other locations in Ann Arbor that participate are the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market and the People’s Food Co-Op. You can find your nearest location on the Double Up Food Bucks of Michigan’s online map.
Sample and her husband were originally looking at the Packard Road Café location when they were getting started, but couldn’t make it work, so they opened their Liberty Street location first. When the Packard Road location became available, they moved in, eventually turning it into its current café operation.
“It’s brought such a great vibe to our neighborhood. I love shopping locally, it’s so fresh,” Mary Hampton, a customer who lives down the block from the two Packard locations, said. By shopping locally “you just get so much more personal attention, and local items are more prevalent here.”
Argus’ three locations are also social spaces. We live in an era where people across America’s cultural and political chasms agree on two things – the cost of living is too high and too many people are finding it too easy to be lonely. The abundant indoor and outdoor tables; the family friendly laid back vibes; the quirky, home spun Americana decorations; and the friendly staff all are intended to make these spaces public areas where you can shop with friends and maybe even meet new ones. It is also a place for food-oriented businesses to meet each other.
“It’s perfectly catered to the right market. The people who are looking for fresh, local, organically grown products, and are able to get the price point that is right for our scale. I definitely feel more and more that Argus is becoming a destination [for rural/urban connection] and [to] do some farm hub style stuff. They’re working with some restaurants and occasionally reaching out to us to fill out orders, which can lead to more business,” said Lindsay Steele, who grows spinach, arugula, and microgreens on the Garden Fort farm he co-owns with his wife outside Dexter. Around 15 to 20 percent of their produce goes through Argus, where he said they took advantage of a major business opportunity supplying Zingerman’s Roadhouse.
“That was completely driven by their relationship with Zingerman’s, bridging that [gap] to me. … It’s not typical that any other retailer would spread that business around for you in any direct way like that,” Steele said.
A number of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti restaurants find local produce and dairy suppliers through Argus, according to Sample. In addition to Zingerman’s, she said that Ms. Kim’s at Kerrytown Market, Bellflower restaurant in Ypsilanti, and even the soon-to-open Echelon, which will soon be replacing the Mongolian BBQ at Washington and Main Streets, all have taken advantage of the networking Argus provides.
“It’s easier for them to contact Argus and arrange for supply than to communicate with a number of different farms,” Sample said.
Chefs interested in finding new local suppliers, and farms looking for new restaurants to sell their product to can get the networking process started by contacting Will Moyer, the online operations manager. He can be reached at hub@argusfarmstop.com.
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
