The Invest Atlanta Board approved grants for two local small businesses to increase food accessibility in disinvested areas of the city that often lack ready options for fresh foods. Two Economic Opportunity Fund Food Access Grants, totaling $1.6 million, will support expansion projects for Goodr and Nourish + Bloom.

Goodr

A $1 million Economic Opportunity Fund Food Access Grant was awarded to help Goodr finance the design and buildout of a community grocery store at iVillage @ MLK. The store will provide groceries, including fresh produce, eggs, milk, meat and other shelf-stable items.

Invest Atlanta, the City of Atlanta and MARTA partnered to create the iVillage @ MLK using repurposed shipping containers at the H.E. Holmes MARTA Station. The container village provides affordable, attractive and transit-accessible grocery, health services and retail along the Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive corridor.

The Economic Opportunity Fund for Goodr offers a model to examine the demand, need and value that a community food store has in low-income, disinvested neighborhoods with the goal of attracting and informing future grocery-based establishments. It also serves as an opportunity to jumpstart future interest in transit-oriented development (TOD) at H.E. Holmes Station.

Goodr founder and CEO Jasmine Crowe is an award-winning entrepreneur, TED speaker and children’s book author who founded the tech-enabled sustainable food waste management company. She is the 35th Black woman to raise more than $1 million in venture capital and was named as a top 100 influential female founders by Entrepreneurial Magazine.

Nourish + Bloom Market

Nourish + Bloom was awarded a $600,000 Economic Opportunity Fund Food Access Grant to help finance two Nourish + Bloom Market container stores, which will be located in Pittsburgh Yards and a location to be determined in District 11.

Nourish + Bloom is a minority- and woman-owned autonomous grocery store that provides locally sourced grocery items, alongside everyday convenience items, with no checkout. Its autonomous container store model is designed to bring fresh produce and other nutritious goods directly to the community, offering a convenient, accessible solution and represents a competitive attraction project within the grocery industry.

This project represents Nourish + Bloom’s first expansion and will support two part-time and two full-time jobs, including a satellite store manager, customer experience representative, stocker and security guard. The company is committed to combatting food inequity and food insecurity by serving consumers in food deserts and historically underserved areas. And its versatile products allow it to deploy in all market conditions and serve more than 5,000 patrons monthly.

In addition, Nourish + Bloom is committed to creating well-rounded employees in both AI and robotics, so as advancements in technology may scale out traditional grocer jobs, their employees can easily transition into the future of retail.