Public grocery store

Public grocery stores are grocery stores that are operated by a government for the benefit of the general public. Because these grocery stores are publicly owned and run for community benefit rather than solely for profit, the grocery stores have greater flexibility to lower prices for customers. While the term "public grocery store" is most commonly used to mean government-run grocery stores, cooperatives, non-profits, and public-private partnerships are also sometimes referred to as public grocery stores.^[1] Government-owned grocery stores may be nationalized, tribally owned, municipality-owned, or owned by other sub-national jurisdictions. State-owned grocery stores have been common in current and historic communist and socialist states, but are also found in states with predominantly capitalist or mixed-market economies. Commissaries are grocery stores run by militaries or prisons to provide goods to enlistees and prisoners.^[2][3]

The sociologist Justin Sean Myers and the psychologist Christine C. Caruso have compared government-run grocery stores for the general public to state-owned alcohol stores and military commissaries.^[4]

The existence of public grocery stores alongside privately owned grocery stores in the context of a mixed-market economy has been referred to by some advocates as a "public option" for grocery shopping.^[5][6]

The EMAPA supermarket chain in Bolivia is state-owned.^[7]

Most grocery stores in Cuba have been state-owned for decades, due to the government monopoly on retail. Some privately owned grocery stores are allowed to exist, but typically remain unaffordable for the majority of Cubans.^[8]

In some remote areas of Greenland, state-owned grocery stores provide food and other commodities imported from Denmark and other countries.^[9]

Each branch of the United States Armed Forces owns and operates its own public grocery system known as a PX or exchange, which is open to members of the military, and provides goods and services. The exchange includes military grocery stores known as commissaries.^[10]

During the 21st century, several cities in the United States have operated city-owned grocery stores, including cities in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Wisconsin.^[11] Many stores that have received subsidies have closed within a few years or failed to open.^[12]

Some federally-recognized American Indian tribes operate their own grocery stores. The Citizen Potawatomi Nation and the Choctaw Nation own tribal grocery stores in Oklahoma.^[13] The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's FireLake Foods in Shawnee, Oklahoma, is the largest tribal grocery store in the United States.^[14]

In the 21st century, there has been a national movement supporting the establishment of grocery stores through public–private partnerships.^[4]

Baldwin Market in Baldwin, Florida was owned and operated by the city. The grocery store was purchased by the city in 2019 and operated until March 2024, when it closed.^[15]

Launched in 2012, the Illinois Fresh Food Fund supported the opening of six grocery stores in food deserts.^[16] Four of them have closed.^[12]

In 2023, Rise Community Market opened in Cairo, Illinois.^[17] In the first half of 2024, it averaged less than half its required sales to break even.^[12]

City officials in Chicago have considered opening a city-owned grocery store, but instead opted to open multiple city-run markets throughout the city.^[18][19]

In 2025, the city of Venice, Illinois announced a plan to build a city-owned grocery store.^[20]

In Kansas, several grocery stores are community-supported, municipality-owned, or city-run. In rural Kansas, local governments and communities had stepped in to own and operate grocery stores as private owners have retired. St. Paul Supermarket in St. Paul, Kansas, is a municipality-owned business.^[21]

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City in the 2025 election, has called for the creation of city-owned grocery stores in New York City.^[22] Mamdani's proposal is to have a pilot program where 5 public grocery stores are opened, one in each borough.^[23]

Madison, Wisconsin has plans to open its first city-owned grocery store in a food desert on Madison's South Side, operated by Maurer’s Urban Market. Originally scheduled to open by the end of 2023,^[24] the store is estimated to open in mid-2025.^[25]

During the administration of Hugo Chávez, many supermarkets were nationalized in 2010.^[26] These supermarkets were among his administration's more popular policies. Poor and low-income shoppers were more likely to frequent government-owned supermarkets, while wealthier shoppers more often frequented privately owned supermarkets.^[27] When oil prices collapsed during the administration of Chávez's successor Nicolás Maduro, state-owned supermarkets struggled to import food during the economic crisis.^[28]

The Bicentenario supermarket chain in Venezuela was formerly owned by the state.^[29] Nationalized under the administration of Hugo Chávez, the chain was later reprivatized.^[30]

The discount supermarket and department store chain Shahrvand Chain Stores Inc. is owned by the city government of Tehran.^[31]

Sri Lanka has a government-owned supermarket chain known as Lanka Sathosa.^[32] As of 2015, it was Sri Lanka's only state-owned supermarket chain.^[33]

Vietnam's socialist government maintains state-owned supermarkets.^[34]

According to a 2005 United Nations Commission on Human Rights report, state-owned supermarkets in Belarus engaged in censorship by refusing to sell independent newspapers.^[35]

Due to the government monopoly on retail, grocery stores were government-owned in the communist People's Republic of Bulgaria.

In 2025, the Bulgarian government announced that it would be opening a chain of state-owned supermarkets.^[36]

Due to the state monopoly on retail, all grocery stores were government-owned in socialist Czechoslovakia and consolidated together under a single grocery store network called Zdroj. Zdroj owned grocery stores, greengrocers, and butcher shops across the Czech Socialist Republic. The basis of Zdroj was a grocery store chain privately owned by Julius Meinl, Jedlo Bratislava, and Lahôdky Lamplota that was nationalized in 1948. Following the collapse of socialism, Zdroj was broken up into several regional chains and privatized.^[37][38]

Aside from Zdroj, Czechoslovakia also had a network of consumer cooperatives called Jednota that sold food products.^[37]

Due to the state monopoly on retail in the socialist Hungarian People's Republic, grocery stores were owned by the Hungarian government.

The state-owned Csemege grocery chain was established in 1952. In 1992, following the collapse of the socialist government, Csemege was privatized and sold to the Austrian retail company Julius Meinl. Csemege-Julius Meinl was later purchased by the Belgian Louis Delhaize Group and incorporated into the supermarket chain Match.^[39][40] Julius Meinl also purchased the privatized Közért supermarket chain.^[41]

The state-owned Duna Fuszert Rt supermarket chain was privatized in 1989 when it was sold to the Belgian privately owned corporation Louis Delhaize Group. In 1991, the group purchased several more privatized small grocery stores and renamed them Profi.^[42]

In 1992, the CBA supermarket chain was formed by 10 businessmen who purchased 17 privatized grocery stores.^[42]

In 1995, the state-owned Global supermarket chain was privatized. 45 former Global supermarkets were purchased by Tesco.^[43][44]

Due to the nationalization of retail in the socialist Polish People's Republic, many Polish grocery stores were state-owned. Społem, a consumers' co-operative of local grocery stores, was also under state ownership.^[45]

State-owned grocery stores were once common in the Socialist Republic of Romania. The state monopoly on retail ended after the collapse of Communism in 1989.^[46]

Grocery stores and department stores were state-owned during the Soviet era. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many grocery stores and other retail outlets were privatized.

The Eliseyevsky grocery store in Moscow was state-owned during the Soviet era. The store was privatized in the early 1990s.^[47]

Due to the government monopoly on retail, grocery stores were government-owned in communist Yugoslavia.

The C-market supermarket chain was state-owned in Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro.^[48] The first Serbian supermarket was a C-market opened in Belgrade in 1958.^[49]

Due to the state monopoly on retail, all grocery stores were government-owned in socialist Czechoslovakia and consolidated together under a single grocery store network called Zdroj. Zdroj owned grocery stores, greengrocers, and butcher shops across the Slovak Socialist Republic. The basis of Zdroj was a grocery store chain privately owned by Julius Meinl, Jedlo Bratislava, and Lahôdky Lamplota that was nationalized in 1948. Following the collapse of socialism, Zdroj was broken up into several regional chains and privatized.^[38][37]

Aside from Zdroj, Czechoslovakia also had a network of consumer cooperatives called Jednota that sold food products.^[37]

Slovenia is an ex-Yugoslavian republic. As such, its economy was largely state-owned prior to the dissolution of the federation. The state still owns many enterprises, such as the banks, which in turn own businesses such as supermarkets and newspapers.^[50]

In 2023, in response to rising grocery store prices, the Spanish left-wing political party Podemos has proposed the creation of government-owned supermarkets with reduced prices.^[51]

There are no state-owned grocery stores in New Zealand. State-owned supermarkets have been debated as a possible answer to New Zealand's "supermarket duopoly", but no proposal has been enacted.^[52] The two privately owned supermarket chains, Foodstuffs and Woolworths New Zealand, together maintain a 90% market share in New Zealand.^[53][54]

Criticism of government-owned grocery stores has come from private business owners, including bodega owners. The organization United Bodegas of America and John Catsimatidis, a billionaire owner of a supermarket chain, have criticized public grocery stores as harmful to private businesses and their workers.^[55]

• America Has Plenty of Experience With Government-Run Stores, and It Isn't Pretty, Reason.com
• Shopping in the Soviet Union - Cold War DOCUMENTARY, YouTube
• Links in the Chain: Department Stores in Socialist Yugoslavia, 1950s-1980s with Ivana Zimbrek, Hagley Museum and Library