Most grocery stores belong to grocery chains — e.g., Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Aldi, Kroger, etc. But what if you can’t get them to open a store in your city?
If you’re Atlanta, you do it yourself. The city put up $8m in funding, including grants and loans, to bring Azalea Fresh Market to its downtown — an area that hasn’t had a grocery store in 20 years — in September, per The Wall Street Journal.
How it works
Savi Provisions, which runs a chain of organic markets, operates the store, purchasing staples wholesale so that it can sell them for less or at parity with major chains. Meanwhile, an upstairs sushi and sandwich counter with beer and wine sold at market prices helps offset the difference.
The city hopes the store will be profitable within three years, and plans to open another six miles away.
Why?
Some neighborhoods are considered “food deserts” because access to fresh, affordable food is limited.
Areas that have an abundance of liquor stores and fast-food restaurants, where you can buy food but it isn’t healthy, are known as “food swamps.” For obvious reasons, this becomes a health issue.
Atlanta isn’t alone
During his campaign, NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani proposed stores that could offer lower prices because they’d occupy city-owned buildings rent- and property tax-free.
There’s been a lot of debate as to whether or not that would work, and other cities have had mixed results.
- St. Paul, Kansas, funded a supermarket in 2008 and bought it outright after the couple that ran it retired in 2013. It’s still open. Nearby Erie, Kansas, however, bought its only store to save it from closure in 2021, but it shuttered this summer.
- Baltimore used funds from Casino Local Impact Fund, which fuels community initiatives with revenue from slot machines, to partner with a grocery store operator and open Jumbo Fresh Supermarket last year.
- A city-funded Kansas City, Missouri, store closed in August despite $18m in funding over a decade, with the store citing low foot traffic due to crime as the primary issue.
Meanwhile, Boston is exploring the possibility to help residents who are struggling with rising food prices, and Madison, Wisconsin, is due to open one soon.
Should Atlanta’s market take off, it could serve as an example of what a city can do to nourish a healthy community.
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