Daily Organics in Los Angeles

Once a model for some of the top fashion houses in the world, Renee Gunter traded in her jet-setting lifestyle to provide the most gorgeous and delicious fruits, veggies, and natural products available to Los Angeles residents — all from her pop-up, organic produce markets…

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Renee Gunter of Daily Organics is eager to tell her story about the time the paramedics left her South L.A. neighbor, his eyes glazed, tracks on his arms. As he moved down the sidewalk, he did not return her “hello.”

It would have been easy to dismiss this man’s predicament, but she persisted in trying to get his attention and eventually he spoke.

He wasn’t strung out on drugs – he was suffering from diabetes.

The medics had been called on him after a near insulin shock and he was now headed down the street for a fast food burger to restore his blood sugar levels.

That’s when Renee told him to wait, she ran inside and grabbed some fresh peaches and brought one to him, “Here eat this instead, ” she advised.

His eyes burst with joy at the first bite and she could see his glaze start to diminish.

Soon, she and Mr. Carter were laughing and enjoying the slurpy peaches, juice running down their smiling faces.

Next was a fresh, raw ear of corn, then some fat purple grapes. Mr. Carter has come back every single week.

“That’s one more person who knows where real food comes from,” she says.

“I can’t preach to people, all I can do is provide options. I can’t feed the world, but I can feed one person at a time.”

This is how Renee changes the world every day.

She delivers fresh produce from her 1962 Corvair pickup “Roscoe” around the city and from her stand in South L.A. and West Hollywood.

We met Renee outside the Lindy and Grundy butcher shop, where butchers Erika and Amelia sell their 100% pasture-raised meats (including the insane meatloaf sandwiches we scored along with some lamb bacon and pork rillette!)

In most cities brimming with a fast food joint on every other corner, fresh and raw options are obscured at the least.

The former international model and actress also rides a motorcycle, collects vinyl, and holds a black belt in martial arts

“I’m just being Renee, when I do something I do it 100 percent… Then I move on to do something else.”

Her talent in fashion doesn’t stop with runway modeling; she is a natural food stylist. Her produce is gorgeously arranged, bursting with rainbow hues from the lush black grapes to bright canary yellow wax beans and orange tomatoes.

“Just like Free Range Quest, we hear from a lot of people who always wanted to do this,” she says of her mission to bring real organic food to others. “I thought, if I am doing this, a lot of other people have to want to do this too.”

“How are these tomatoes?” asks a young woman walking by the stand as we talked.

“Outrageous!”

We snapped up a few of those orange tomatoes and paired them with Renee’s fresh peaches, Lindy & Grundy’s lamb bacon, fresh romaine, and whipped cream cheese — A BLTP that was indeed, outrageously delicious.