October 16, 2025
Situated in downtown Atlanta, the Azalea Market opened in August.
As American cities battle with rising meals costs and fewer entry to reasonably priced groceries, Atlanta lawmakers applied an answer that will develop into the blueprint for different main cities.
Azalea Contemporary Market is town’s first government-operated grocery retailer. Located in downtown Atlanta, the market gives contemporary and domestically made meals as an alternative of packaged and processed objects.
The grocery retailer is positioned in an space the Division of Agriculture classifies as a meals desert, which implies many residents don’t reside near full-service grocery shops. The shop operates each day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and plans to open two eating places sooner or later.
“Azalea Contemporary Market is proof that once we work collectively as a metropolis, we are able to ship actual options that change lives,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens informed Fox Information Digital. In lower than two months, the shop has served greater than 20,000 clients, proof, he says, of how robust the necessity was in a neighborhood “lengthy underserved by grocers.”
Dickens famous that in its first month, contemporary produce made up 11.6 p.c of Azalea Contemporary’s gross sales, exceeding the nationwide common of 10 p.c.
Atlanta’s city-run market has develop into a possible success story, drawing shut consideration from different main cities like New York. Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani stated that if he takes workplace, he plans to create city-operated grocery shops to deal with rising prices in America’s largest metropolis.
“As Mayor, Zohran will create a community of city-owned grocery shops targeted on protecting costs low, not making a revenue,” his marketing campaign web site notes. “With out having to pay lease or property taxes, they’ll cut back overhead and move on financial savings to customers.”
Some argue that city-run grocery shops may negatively affect taxpayers. Nicole Huyer, a senior analysis affiliate on the Heritage Basis’s Thomas A. Roe Institute for Financial Coverage Research, argues that smaller grocers will battle to compete with the government-subsidized companies.
The Azalea Contemporary Market is positioned at 25 Peachtree Avenue NW within the historic Olympia Constructing.
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