How new Kansas City grocery store on Troost aims to make healthy eating more accessible

At a new grocery store on the corner of Troost Avenue and Armour Boulevard, customers can buy just one egg, if that’s all they need.

It’s part of a business strategy that works to address problems like food waste while meeting the needs of customers who are often left without affordable, healthy options in their neighborhoods.

Community Groceries, run by Kortney Lee, is the newest development in a neighborhood that, for some time now, has been without affordable and convenient grocery shopping. The scarcity of healthy food, in particular, fueled Lee’s desire to come up with a solution.

He first noticed the problem working a corporate job. On his breaks, he had frequent access to “junk food,” he said, but not as much to healthy snacks.

“So I started to ask, ‘Why is this always in front of me,’” Lee said. “And when I left the office, it was the same outcome.”

Lee first founded Snacking Well, a company that worked with Kansas City partners to grow the footprint of healthier snacks and promote healthier lifestyles across the city. Eventually, Community Groceries spun off of that success.

The store prioritizes sustainability through local vendors, which work with Lee to keep a fresh assortment of foods available for customers. In addition to its unique single-buy options, there are subscription packages available for returning customers.

“It really came down to discovering that customers are purchasing groceries they can afford, and a lot of the time that is junk food,” he said. “We thought ‘if dollar stores can sell things for a dollar, then we can break our things down to have some of the cheapest prices on the market.’”

Investing in the Troost corridor

Community Groceries opens its doors at a time when more developments are taking form along Kansas City’s Troost corridor. As a former “red line” dividing Kansas City racially and economically, the city and developers invested fewer resources east of Troost Avenue over a span of decades.

Inequitable real estate practices and a segregated school district left predominantly Black neighborhoods in the corridor that used to be a hub for Black-owned businesses with substandard food options. A few years ago, the East Side had several areas considered food deserts, where residents did not have access to fresh produce and other healthy options.

The next closest grocery stores east of Troost Avenue and Armour Boulevard today, apart from Community Groceries, are an Aldi and a Sun Fresh Market, each about 1.5 miles away. While the food deserts are less prevalent, food inequality and other disparities still remain in some communities.

The issue has been on the radar of city officials, local businesses and developers alike, who have shown an interest in investing money back into neglected areas for more widespread rejuvenation.

In 2019, the city approved spending $375,000 to help prevent the Sun Fresh Supermarket in the Linwood Shopping Center from closing its doors. The store has been the anchor of a long-term economic development project in Kansas City’s East Side.

Troost neighborhoods encompass historic businesses and schools, nonprofit organizations and some city parks. In recent years, these neighborhoods have been the site of developments like new apartment buildings, business expansions and home renovations.

Mac Properties, a Chicago-based company with apartments in St. Louis and Kansas City, renovated and opened apartment buildings near Armour and Troost last year. The developer renovated buildings that were historically used for low-income Section 8 housing.

Projects like Land Clearance Redevelopment Authority (LCRA) enabled area homeowners to do renovations without a hike in property taxes. And the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA) incentivized developers to invest in projects with high investment risk.

Melissa Robinson, Kansas City’s District 3 council member, said she is “overjoyed” about Community Groceries opening in her district during a time of rejuvenation.

“As we work to be the most livable city for current residents and increasing opportunities to grow our neighborhoods, this is the type of development that we aim to support and celebrate,” Robinson said in an email to The Star.

Robinson also said the new store is providing a good opportunity for local sourcing as a benefit for Kansas City entrepreneurs who “strengthen our local economy.”

Lee, of course, said he encourages people to shop local. He prides himself on supporting local business by working with local vendors, including his primary milk distributor, Shatto Milk.

Before opening Community Groceries, Lee knew he wanted to address three main issues that kept coming up in conversations with colleagues and friends. He wanted to provide access to affordable, healthy foods, help mitigate food waste and understand why consumers were opting for less healthy foods when they had access to healthier ones.

The business model at his new store is molded by the answers to those questions.

“The problem we’re really looking to solve is allowing consumers to purchase exactly what they need without having to spend a fortune on what they don’t need,” Lee said.