A Black-owned urban farm cooperative has opened the first full grocery store in Birmingham's Fountain Heights neighborhood in nearly 70 years, offering a replicable model of community-led food access that the broader foodservice and hospitality industry is watching closely. Fountain Heights Farms Cooperative (FHFC) debuted We All Eat Market on Nov. 7 inside Heart of the Farm, a new market and community kitchen complex in the historic Fountain Heights district.
The facility serves more than 3,000 residents in an area that has long been classified as a food desert. Much of what the market stocks is grown at FHFC's own 16 farm plots located nearby — a hyper-local supply chain that insulates shoppers from some of the volatility driving grocery prices higher across the country.
The Community Economics
"For almost 70 years, families in Fountain Heights have had to leave their own neighborhood just to buy groceries, and every dollar they spent left with them," said M. Dominique Villanueva, co-founder of Fountain Heights Farms Cooperative. "Our communities don't have to wait for someone else to decide what we eat or where we can buy it. We can grow it, sell it and own it, and this market is proof of that."
The cooperative's We All Eat CSA program was the first in Alabama to accept EBT payments and participate in the Double Bucks program — an incentive structure that matches SNAP dollars spent on fresh produce, a model gaining traction in food equity discussions across the grocery and foodservice sectors. The Birmingham City Council unanimously approved a $150,000 agreement with FHFC in 2025 to support the Heart of the Farm project, signaling strong municipal appetite for cooperative food infrastructure.
Beyond the Retail Floor
The Heart of the Farm complex is designed to generate economic activity well beyond grocery sales. FHFC is hiring neighborhood residents to staff the store, and the on-site commercial kitchen offers local food entrepreneurs affordable access to licensed production space — a resource that is frequently a bottleneck for small-batch food businesses in underserved markets. That dual mission of retail access and entrepreneurial incubation mirrors strategies being deployed by food co-ops and community development organizations in cities from Detroit to New Orleans.
Founded in 2016 by Villanueva and Christopher Gooden, FHFC has grown from a single garden into a 16-plot urban farming operation that also runs a delivery program and a Freedom Harvest Apprenticeship for emerging growers. The cooperative model — in which the community has ownership stakes rather than merely serving as customers — represents a structural alternative to conventional grocery chains that have historically bypassed low-income urban neighborhoods.
For operators and industry professionals tracking food access and community foodservice innovation, the We All Eat Market demonstrates how cooperative structures, municipal partnerships, and farm-to-retail integration can converge to fill gaps that commercial grocers have left open for generations. As SNAP policy uncertainty continues to cloud household food budgets nationwide, locally anchored models like FHFC's may draw increased attention from city governments and foodservice investors alike.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
