Bobby Sullivan, manager at French Broad Co-Op, talks about the measures the store is taking to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Asheville Citizen Times Just days after stay at home orders scuppered the planned grand opening of her Carolina Flowers Mercantile flagship store in downtown Marshall, farmer and entrepreneur Emily Copus decided the time was right to open a grocery business. “Everything has changed,” Copus said by phone from outside her South Main Street store. Since March, the 2,000-square foot space has evolved from a flower arranging studio and retail store to create space for a grocery stockroom. Coolers now hold blooms from Copus’s three-year old Carolina Flowers business alongside local eggs and farm fresh greens for her three-week old grocery delivery business. “People are vulnerable,” she said. “While it was nice to bring them flowers, I thought it was too bad I can’t bring vegetables. So, I said, ‘OK. I will do that.’” Emily Copus stands outside her Carolina Flowers Mercantile storefront in downtown Marshall. (Photo: Paul Moon/The News-Record & Sentinel) Copus moved quickly. She expanded her website to include food offerings and partnered with local farms willing to deliver local fresh produce, meats, bread and dairy to her Marshall location. She also setup a second spot for farm drop-offs at the critically-acclaimed restaurant Rhubarb in downtown Asheville. “We’re a farm with delivery capacity,” she said of Carolina Flowers, which operates on land in the Walnut community. “Those are tools and resources that are super valuable to people right now. We thought, ‘What can we do to really turn that on.’” The Citizen Times is providing this story for free to readers because of the need for information about the coronavirus. We encourage you to further support local journalism by subscribing. After establishing relationships with around a dozen farms from Madison County and around the Asheville area, Copus opened accounts with wholesalers to expand offering on the ashevillegrocery.com side of her site. “We have shelf-stable goods that you could get at a grocery store like salsa, chips and crackers,” she said. “We’ve got flour, almond milk, muselix. […]
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