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Real Food Market owner in the running for $100K BDC prize

A St. John's businesswoman is the Newfoundland and Labrador finalist for the 2015 BDC Young Entrepreneur Award.

Melissa Butler could win $100,000, which she will use for her business, Real Food Market — an initiative to help people in the province become healthier.

She says if she wins, the money would fund her proposal for a "farm-to-table" food system.

"I have a partnership formed with one of my local farmers — he's a current supplier of mine. And he grows organically, and he can grow year-round in his greenhouses," she said.

"I'm going to invest in that, so that we can have a source of fresh, local, healthy, organic produce throughout the year, without having to ship it in."

Butler says she will also invest in food prep operations at the retail location, so that they can make healthy, fresh, and prepared meals to go.

"Also some monies would be definitely well served with consumer education, and letting people know why it's important to buy locally and to eat fresh, for your health," she said.

Healthier province

Butler says the Real Food Market is a one-stop shop for organic foods and local produce.

"The whole purpose of being able to provide fresh, local, organic, healthy food is to improve the health of the people in our province," Butler said.

She says statistics show that Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest prevalence of obesity, heart-related illnesses and diabetes, for both youth and adults.

"It's probably due in part to the lack of fresh food, locally. We rely on frozen and packaged foods a lot more," she said.

"So by having access to fresh food, it really could change the health of our people."

Butler says it's not easy to get produce outside of the growing season, and shipping services aren't always reliable.

"Our reliance on the ferry system... is flawed," she said.

"We were supposed to have an order of fresh fruits and veggies show up [at the business] on Monday — it's still not here. We're still waiting, not so patiently, so the things that you can see [in the store] that are fresh and nice and green are all actually sourced locally."

Butler is competing against nine other Canadian entrepreneurs. Voting continues on the BDC website until June 17.