Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Champion Produce Company of Moore's Crossroads

7000 Highway 22
Montevallo, AL 35115
Home Phone- 205-665-7602
Cell Phone- 205-417-5847
Email- albonehead@aol.com

Champion Produce Company is a small produce distributor managed by Mr. Floyd Champion out of the back of his pick-up truck (equipped with several umbrellas for shade) and can be found in the Pit Stop gas station's parking lot at Moore's Crossroads. Mr. Champion lives in Almont, and he distributes the produce of local farmers in Jefferson and Chilton County, as well as some out-of-state produce. His produce truck is loaded fresh every morning
with red and green tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, plums, and squash, and he can be spotted in town every day from 7 AM to 5 PM except Wednesday's and Friday's, when he is working in Greensboro.
He pays the owner of the Pit Stop one hundred dollars a month for the opportunity to set up shop at a very high-traffic section of Shelby County and has been distributing fresh produce in various locations since his retirement in 2000. Like U.S.A. Market, his prices are cheaper than local grocery stores, and larger, fresher fruit and vegetables are available for your dollar.
He is the former operator of the Helena Farmer's Market and ran a very successful produce stand in Vestavia; his operations have been the subject of several local television, newspaper, and magazine stories, as revealed to me in a scrapbook. Though obviously no stranger to publicity, after being run out of Vestavia upon local supermarket's accusations that he was causing considerable damage to their business, he now shies away from being a rockstar, and wishes to conduct his operation on nothing more than a small-scale. Though it was ridiculous to himself and I that any business conducted out the back end of a pick-up truck could harm giant corporate produce markets like Wal-Mart or Publix, he assured me that it was just a reality that it wouldn't take much at all for every supermarket from here to Columbiana to complain about him stealing their customers through fresh, local produce.





Aaron

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