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ATLANTA MARKET PROFILE
to improve the Atlanta Farmers Market and
local produce business as a whole.
“Gary Black has done an exceptional job
with the Atlanta Farmers Market,” he says. “He’s done an exceptional job with Georgia Grown and perishables, in general.”
e growth of Georgia as a major regional hub and the cosmopolitan diversity of the Atlanta metropolitan area has kept the produce business revving.
“Whole Foods came in, and everybody else stepped up their game,” says Robert
Poole, senior sales rep at Athena Farms, Forest Park, GA. “It’s not just Whole Foods; everybody has signi cantly more variety than they did 10 years ago. You step up your game or you die.”
For the past two decades Athena Farms has transported a variety of produce out of its 20,000-foot storage facility.
“We’re constantly looking for new produce items,” says Poole. “Ten years ago, nobody had baby kale. Ten years ago, you would see bunched spinach 24 in a bulk box. Now you
probably can’t nd a box of bunched spinach in the entire Atlanta Farmers Market. People are willing to pay more for clipped and washed spinach because of the savings in labor at the restaurants.”
FOR GEORGIANS, LOCAL STILL MATTERS
In this agricultural state, the desire from consumers to buy local has built on a very old tradition of wanting to support farmers down the road.
“Locally grown has been a big push for the past 8 to 10 years,” says ornton. “It’s good for the local economy and for the farmers. California, Mexico and other areas also play a signi cant role, but local means Georgia Grown. Green bell peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and watermelons are all important local items, but we also do specialties.”
Like much of the country, Atlanta shows signs of segmentation, with many well educated and a uent residents sharing the city with a large population stubbornly trapped in poverty.
In 2017, this city of almost 500,000 people still had a poverty rate of nearly 20%, and for children it was an even more dismal 30%, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics.
At the same time however, nearly half of Atlanta’s residents had college degrees, including more than 20% who had gone to graduate school.
e city’s population was more than 50% black in 2017, nearly 40% white, with, by most urban standards, relatively small Asian and Hispanic populations. Only 7.5% of the city’s population was foreign born, a fraction of the gure for Los Angeles and New York, with Asia and Latin America supplying the lion’s share of the immigrant population.
Kroger and Publix still command half the produce market in greater Atlanta, according to the Chain Store Market Guide, but Whole Foods, Sprouts and Trader Joe’s are also attracting signi cant numbers of consumers.
Although there are no large ethnic chains in the metropolitan area, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Target and the dollar stores have grown to more than a 27% share of produce sales.
In Atlanta, buying local produce means the preferred varieties change with the seasons.
“It’s like reinventing the wheel every year,” says Cooseman’s ornton. “Produce items have always been here, and the changes are seasonal. In the fall people want warm salads so you have calls for beets. In the summer it goes toward cool salads and gem lettuce. In the late spring strawberries and blueberries are big.”
62 / AUGUST 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS