#grocery-access

#grocery-access

Zen'Yari Winters, who works at a pet shop in East Memphis, Tennessee, faces a 20-minute commute that often takes three hours due to the unreliability of the bus system. She has to navigate a transit desert where the only full-service grocer closed in 2025, forcing her to buy groceries online to avoid long waits or expensive Uber rides.

Growing up in Louisiana in the '90s, there was only one Korean grocery store in town, which my family drove to every few weeks to pick up staples like gochujang and kimchi.

With financial assistance provided by the city, Cielo Supermarket will come to Highland Square Shopping Center next summer in an effort to provide relief to nearby residents who have been left without a neighborhood grocery store since 2019. The family-owned business is expected to occupy about half of the 58,000-square-foot commercial space that has been vacant for the past six years since the closure of Food Source.