How to Keep the Local Grocery Store Open: A Challenge for NC CED Professionals

<p>Main Street, Mebane, N.C. 1939. Source: Library of Congress – U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html, accessed via https://garystockbridge617.getarchive.net. Accessed July 18, 2023.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400">Almost 15 years ago, a brief CED blog post highlighted several resources for supporting or attracting local grocery stores, especially ones in rural areas.  Much more recently, a CED post highlighted the various ways CED professionals interact with food systems overall. This post brings North Carolina CED professionals up to speed on the activities and initiatives underway around supporting, attracting or building local grocery stores in particular.  How can CED professionals support these vital but struggling community institutions?</p> <div> <p>The importance of a local grocery store has long been known to CED professionals, whether the community is within a large urban area or spread out across a rural county. However, the need to support these businesses as community assets has captured wider attention in the past year. This past April, National Public Radio featured a story on how small towns are trying to save their hometown grocery. The quote from Mayor Douglas Shere below comes from an award-winning short documentary, They Came From All Over, documenting the impact of potentially losing a local grocery store in a rural Iowa community. Here in North Carolina, the North Carolina Healthy Food Retail Task Force found “the uneven distribution of supermarkets in North Carolina leaves a disproportionate number of under-resourced people without access to nutritious food” in its 2019 report, Supporting Healthy Food Access in North Carolina.</p> </div> <div style="text-align: [...]