Public grocery stores aregrocery 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, andpublic-private partnerships are also sometimes referred to as public grocery stores.[1] Government-owned grocery stores may benationalized,tribally owned,municipality-owned, or owned by other sub-national jurisdictions. State-owned grocery stores have been common in current and historiccommunist andsocialist states, but are also found in states with predominantlycapitalist ormixed-market economies.Commissaries are grocery stores run by militaries or prisons to provide goods to enlistees and prisoners.[2][3] Public grocery stores are also similar tostate-owned alcohol stores.[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]
Bolivia – Bolivia's Empresa de Apoyo a la Producción de Alimentos (Emapa, Food Production Support Company), which includes a supermarket chain, is state-owned.[7][8]
Cuba – Most grocery stores in Cuba have been state-owned for decades, due to the government monopoly on retail. Since 2021, some small- and medium-size privately owned grocery stores have been allowed to exist, but typically remain unaffordable for the majority of Cubans.[9]
Greenland – In some remote areas of Greenland, state-owned grocery stores provide food and other commodities imported fromDenmark and other countries.[10]Pilersuisoq isKNI's grocery retail store chain.[11]
United States – Each branch of theUnited States Armed Forces owns and operates its own public grocery system known as a PX orexchange, which is open to members of the military, and provides goods and services. The exchange includes military grocery stores known ascommissaries.[12] Inalcoholic beverage control states, liquor stores are owned by the state government.[13] During the 21st century, several cities in the United States have operated or have plans to open city-owned grocery stores, including cities in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, and Wisconsin.[14] Many stores that have received subsidies have closed within a few years or failed to open.[15] Some federally recognizedAmerican Indian tribes operate their own grocery stores. TheCitizen Potawatomi Nation and theChoctaw Nation own tribal grocery stores inOklahoma.[16] The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's FireLake Foods inShawnee, Oklahoma, is the largest tribal grocery store in the United States.[17] In the 21st century, some food infrastructure advocates have supported the establishment of grocery stores throughpublic–private partnerships to address negative effects associated withfood deserts.[4]
Florida – Baldwin Market inBaldwin, 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.[18]
Georgia – The city ofAtlanta, in partnership with local supermarket chain Savi Provisions, opened Azalea Fresh Market in September 2025.[19] The store is intended to address food insecurity in a food desert in Downtown Atlanta. The city contributed $3.5 million of the project's $5.4 million.[20]
Illinois – Launched in 2012, the Illinois Fresh Food Fund supported the opening of six grocery stores in food deserts.[21] As of 2024, four of them had closed.[15] In 2023, Rise Community Market opened inCairo, Illinois.[22] In 2024,ProPublica reported on the store's financial struggles, citing that in the first half of the year, it averaged less than half its required sales to break even.[15] In 2023,Chicago MayorBrandon Johnson announced thatChicago would explore the possibility of a city-owned grocery store.[23] The following year, a feasibility study conducted for the city described the municipal grocery store model as "necessary, feasible and implementable."[24] In 2025, city officials announced that they did not apply for state funding for the municipal grocery store, and instead plan to open multiple city-run markets throughout the city.[25][26] In January 2024,[27] the Grocery Initiative Act came into effect.[28] It authorized the Illinois Grocery Initiative, which aims to address inadequate access to fresh foods, particularly in food deserts, through grants to establish new grocery stores in food deserts and grants to upgrade equipment in existing stores.[29] In 2025, the city ofVenice, Illinois received a $2.4 million state grant from the initiative to build a grocery store. The city plans to own the building and lease it to private investors.[30]
Kansas – InKansas, 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 inSt. Paul, is a municipality-owned business.[31] In May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the city ofErie bought the Stub's Market grocery store in order to prevent the store from closing. The store was renamed to Erie Market.[32] In September 2024, citing high costs of running the store, the city announced that Erie Market would be leased to River Grocery LLC, which would take over operations and management.[33]
New York –Zohran Mamdani, themayor-elect of New York City in the2025 election, has called for the creation of city-owned grocery stores inNew York City.[34] Mamdani's proposal is to have a pilot program where 5 public grocery stores are opened, one in each borough.[13] To fund the city-owned grocery stores, Mamdani proposed to redirect funds from the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program. He claimed that FRESH spends $140 million and that the city-owned grocery stores would take less than half of that. Newspaper columnistTimothy P. Carney noted that a report by the office of theNew York City Comptroller stated the program had only given around $30 million intax breaks since inception and had an average yearly cost of $3.3 million.[35][36] Criticism of the proposal has also come from private business owners, includingbodega owners. The organization United Bodegas of America andJohn Catsimatidis, a billionaire owner of a supermarket chain, have criticized public grocery stores as harmful to private businesses and their workers.[37]
Wisconsin –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,[38] the store is estimated to open in mid-2025.[39]
Venezuela – During the administration ofHugo Chávez, many supermarkets were nationalized in 2010.[40] These supermarkets were among his administration's more popular policies.[41] Poor and low-income shoppers were more likely to frequent government-owned supermarkets, while wealthier shoppers more often frequented privately owned supermarkets.[42] When oil prices collapsed during the administration of Chávez's successorNicolás Maduro, state-owned supermarkets struggled to import food during the economic crisis.[41] TheBicentenario supermarket chain in Venezuela was formerly owned by the state.[43] Nationalized under the administration of Hugo Chávez, the chain was later reprivatized.[44]
Iran – The discount supermarket and department store chainShahrvand Chain Stores Inc. is owned by the city government ofTehran.[45]
Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka has a government-owned supermarket chain known asLanka Sathosa.[46] As of 2015, it was Sri Lanka's only state-owned supermarket chain.[47]
Vietnam – Vietnam'ssocialist government maintains state-owned supermarkets.[48] As of 2023, Co.op Mart, a supermarket brand under the state-run cooperative Saigon Co.op, had the most locations among supermarket brands in the country.[49]
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Belarus – According to a 2005United Nations Commission on Human Rights report, state-owned supermarkets in Belarus engaged incensorship by refusing to sell independent newspapers.[50]
Bulgaria – Due to the state monopoly over large retail outlets in the socialistPeople's Republic of Bulgaria, only small food retail businesses were permitted, such as stalls or kiosks.[51] In 2025, the Bulgarian government announced that it would be opening a chain of state-owned supermarkets.[52]
Czechoslovakia –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 calledZdroj.Zdroj owned grocery stores,greengrocers, and butcher shops across Czechia and Slovakia. The basis ofZdroj 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.[53][54] Aside fromZdroj, Czechoslovakia also had a network ofconsumer cooperatives calledJednota that sold food products.[53]
Hungary – A state monopoly over the retail industry was instituted in the socialistHungarian People's Republic, beginning in the 1940s.[55] The state-ownedCsemege grocery chain was established in 1952. In 1992, following the collapse of the socialist government,Csemege was privatized and sold to the Austrian retail companyJulius Meinl. Csemege-Julius Meinl was later purchased by the BelgianLouis Delhaize Group and incorporated into the supermarket chainMatch.[56][57] Julius Meinl also purchased the privatizedKözért supermarket chain.[58] The state-owned Duna Fuszert Rt supermarket chain was privatized in 1989 when it was sold to the Belgian privately owned corporationLouis Delhaize Group. In 1991, the group purchased several more privatized small grocery stores and renamed themProfi.[59] In 1992, theCBA supermarket chain was formed by 10 businessmen who purchased 17 privatized grocery stores.[59] In 1995, private grocery retailerTesco acquired the state-owned supermarket chain Global. At the time, Global had over 40 locations.[60][61]
Poland – Due to the nationalization of retail in the socialistPolish People's Republic, many Polish grocery stores were state-owned.Społem, aconsumers' co-operative of local grocery stores, also became controlled by the state during this time.[62] In 2020, the Polish government considered opening a government-owned grocery store chain to help farmers.[63]
Romania – State-owned grocery stores were once common in theSocialist Republic of Romania. The state monopoly on retail ended after the collapse of Communism in1989.[64] In 2020, the Romanian government considered opening a state-owned retail chain calledUnirea (The Union). The Romanian Ministry of Agriculture also announced the creation of a state-owned "agro food commerce" company to help Romanian small farmers and promote Romanian-made goods.[63]
Russia – In theSoviet Union, the government nationalized the retail industry after theRussian Revolution. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, much of the retail sector was privatized.[65] TheEliseyevsky grocery store in Moscow was state-owned during the Soviet era. The store was privatized in the early 1990s.[66]
Yugoslavia – A state monopoly over retail was instituted inYugoslavia in the 1940s, including government ownership of retail shops. By 1946, 90% of the retail industry had been nationalised.[67] TheC-market supermarket chain was state-owned inYugoslavia andSerbia and Montenegro.[68] The first Serbian supermarket was a C-market opened inBelgrade in 1958.[69]
Slovenia – Slovenia is a former Yugoslav 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.[70]
Spain – In 2023, in response to rising grocery store prices, the Spanish left-wing political partyPodemos has proposed the creation of government-owned supermarkets with reduced prices.[63]
New Zealand – There are no state-owned grocery stores in New Zealand. State-owned supermarkets have been debated as a possible answer toNew Zealand's "supermarket duopoly", but no proposal has been enacted.[71] The two privately owned supermarket chains,Foodstuffs andWoolworths New Zealand, together maintain a 90% market share in New Zealand.[72][73]Commissaries are basically your neighborhood grocery store, located on military installations worldwide. The commissary sells food and household items at prices that are often below other grocery stores.
Commissary is a store within a correctional facility where incarcerated individuals can purchase various goods and supplies. These items often include snacks, hygiene products, and clothing.
In those cases citizens could be granted the use of workshops or small retail shops or outlets (public food-and-drink establishments, stalls, kiosks, etc.). This more or less exhausted the allowed business activities by persons other than the state-owned enterprises and cooperatives.
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