The Grit Grocery truck at Market Square. Photo by Philip Emerson

Grit Grocery, a farmers market food truck with a mission to make fresh foods accessible, is taking that accessibility one step further.

Facebook users can now interact with Grit with just a few taps on Facebook Messenger. The tool launched this month.

"Most people would develop a mobile app, but this is our alternative to an app," one of Grit's founders, Dustin Windham, says. "There's a lot of research around app fatigue — people don't want to download yet another app — but over a billion people already have access to Facebook Messenger."

Users can use the chat bot to see where the truck is, the hours, and order meal kits.

"You interact via text message, which is really the future we feel of business-customer communication," Windham says.

In addition to this new tool, Grit plans on bringing a second truck to Houston by January. The second truck will help the grocer enter new neighborhoods around Houston. With the expansion, he hopes to hit the Heights and Acres Homes — a lower income community that's been identified as needing affordable and accessible groceries.

"We partner with the city with the Complete Communities initiative. They've identified five pilot neighborhoods — low income, food desert areas," Windham says. "Our goal is to get a truck in each of those neighborhoods."

Grit is already in three Houston neighborhoods — Downtown, EaDo, and the Museum District — once or twice a week. The second truck is just the first of many plans for growth, Windham says.

"The goal is to flesh it out and expand," Windham says. "[We want to have] at least 10 different trucks in 20 to 30 neighborhoods to prove that it works and take this to other Texas cities, then across the southern U.S. — fast growing cities that have challenges like Houston."

Grit's bread and butter is making easy, accessible, and locally sourced meals at an affordable price. The meal kits have been a big success for the truck — fresh ingredients ready to cook or assemble for just around $15 or less for two servings. While several meal delivery companies like Blue Apron are doing something similar, Grit provides local, fresh foods without a pricey subscription plan that comes with a lot of packaging. With Grit, you can pick up dinner for tonight, as well as any other snacks or groceries you'll need.

The original idea for Grit came when Windham was in the Peace Corps and living in Azerbaijan. He shopped more frequently and bought smaller volumes and cooked everything from scratch.

"It was eye opening to see this different way of eating," Windham says. "I got back to the United States after living abroad for two years with the knowledge of how to eat healthier, but it was difficult to do. These big box stores are designed for buying large volumes of food every week or every two weeks."

Grit operates on a much smaller scale.

"Another thing is the typical grocery store has 30,000 products. We have about 300," Michael Powell, one of the other founders, told CultureMap. "You can step up and see everything we have to offer. Simplifying the process, I think that's where we have something to offer."

Grit Grocery first opened in April and was founded by Windham, Jamal Ansari, and Emily Jaschke, head of communications. Windham and Ansari, both Rice University MBAs, had been working on the idea for Grit a few years prior to launch. Powell, who has a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology and has done extensive research into the way people shop for groceries, joined the team last year.

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Chevron enters the lithium market with major Texas land acquisition

to market

Chevron U.S.A., a subsidiary of Houston-based energy company Chevron, has taken its first big step toward establishing a commercial-scale lithium business.

Chevron acquired leaseholds totaling about 125,000 acres in Northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas from TerraVolta Resources and East Texas Natural Resources. The acreage contains a high amount of lithium, which Chevron plans to extract from brines produced from the subsurface.

Lithium-ion batteries are used in an array of technologies, such as smartwatches, e-bikes, pacemakers, and batteries for electric vehicles, according to Chevron. The International Energy Agency estimates lithium demand could grow more than 400 percent by 2040.

“This acquisition represents a strategic investment to support energy manufacturing and expand U.S.-based critical mineral supplies,” Jeff Gustavson, president of Chevron New Energies, said in a news release. “Establishing domestic and resilient lithium supply chains is essential not only to maintaining U.S. energy leadership but also to meeting the growing demand from customers.”

Rania Yacoub, corporate business development manager at Chevron New Energies, said that amid heightening demand, lithium is “one of the world’s most sought-after natural resources.”

“Chevron is looking to help meet that demand and drive U.S. energy competitiveness by sourcing lithium domestically,” Yacoub said.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital.

International Space Station welcomes astronauts from successful Axiom Mission 4

Out In Space

The first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland and Hungary arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, ferried there by SpaceX on a private flight.

The crew of four will spend two weeks at the orbiting lab, performing dozens of experiments. They launched Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

America’s most experienced astronaut, Peggy Whitson, is the commander of the visiting crew. She works for Axiom Space, the Houston company that arranged the chartered flight.

Besides Whitson, the crew includes India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, a pilot in the Indian Air Force; Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer; and Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a radiation expert and one of the European Space Agency’s project astronauts on temporary flight duty.

No one has ever visited the International Space Station from those countries before. The time anyone rocketed into orbit from those countries was in the late 1970s and 1980s, traveling with the Soviets.

“It’s an honor to have you join our outpost of international cooperation and exploration," NASA's Mission Control radioed from Houston minutes after the linkup high above the North Atlantic.

The new arrivals shared hugs and handshakes with the space station's seven full-time residents, celebrating with drink pouches sipped through straws. Six nations were represented: four from the U.S., three from Russia and one each from Japan, India, Poland and Hungary.

"It’s so great to be here finally. It was a long quarantine," Whitson said, referring to the crew's extra-long isolation before liftoff to stay healthy.

They went into quarantine on May 25, stuck in it as their launch kept getting delayed. The latest postponement was for space station leak monitoring, NASA wanted to make sure everything was safe following repairs to a longtime leak on the Russian side of the outpost.

It's the fourth Axiom-sponsored flight to the space station since 2022. The company is one of several that are developing their own space stations due to launch in the coming years. NASA plans to abandon the International Space Station in 2030 after more than three decades of operation, and is encouraging private ventures to replace it.

Screen-free hiking app developed in Houston earns 'Best of the Best' award

Peak Prize

An AI-powered, screen-free hiking system developed by Varshini Chouthri, a recent industrial design graduate from the University of Houston, has received Red Dot’s “Best of the Best” award, which recognizes the top innovative designs around the world.

Known as NOMAD, the system aims to help users stay in the moment while still utilizing technology. It will go on to compete for the Red Dot Luminary Award, the highest recognition given at the international event.

“NOMAD was truly a passion project, inspired by years of hiking growing up, where the outdoors became a place of peace, challenge, and reflection,” Chouthri said in a news release.

“I wanted to design something supporting those kinds of experiences by helping hikers feel more grounded and confident while staying present in nature. It was a way to give back to the moments that made me fall in love with the outdoors in the first place.”

The app “reimagines” outdoor exploration by removing the dependence on screens by using adaptive AI, contextual sensing, and an optional, wearable companion device. It employs a circular learning model that enables hikers to receive real-time guidance, safety alerts, personalized trip planning, hands-free navigation and more through a natural interface, according to UH.

NOMAD was developed at the Hines College of Architecture and Design’s PXD LAB. In 2023, Lunet, developed by David Edquilang at Hines College, received the “Best of the Best” recognition and went on to win the Red Dot Luminary Award.

The PXD LAB offers a platform to expand concepts into system-level designs that address real-world challenges, according to UH.

“Varshini’s work on NOMAD exemplifies the future-focused, systems-driven thinking we promote in the Advanced UX Design curriculum,” Min Kang, director of PXD LAB, added in the release. “NOMAD goes beyond being just a product; it reimagines how technology can enhance outdoor exploration without disrupting the experience.”

In addition to the Red Dot honors, NOMAD has already earned distinction from the FIT Sport Design Awards and was a finalist for the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) presented by the Industrial Designers Society of America.