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See how it’s played at any given store.
It’s the Louisiana-made marmalade near the produce department, the crawfish tails in the freezer, or the variety of jambalaya mixes in the aisles.
This is how visitors choose from their weekly shopping lists. Here, shoppers are so familiar with stock that they’ll break their stacks of stores: chicken salad from one store, braided buns from another, fresh seafood from yet another.
Louisianans love local – and so do the businesses that do.
But how did we get here?
It’s a classic chicken-or-the-egg situation: Which came first? Baton Rouge’s unique local grocery scene or Associated Grocers, the organization that helps independent stores thrive here?
It’s hard to say. But here’s what we do know: The Baton Rouge-born association started in 1950 as a way for local stores to increase their buying power and thereby reduce costs for businesses and their customers. It began as a group of 17 of the city’s best-known family stores and has grown to approximately 100 locations throughout the Southeast, each focused on meeting the needs of the community it serves.
Manard Lagasse Jr., CEO of Associated Grocers, says that local focus has kept customers coming back for nearly 75 years.
“We understand the culture and how the culture is intertwined with the food in Louisiana,” Lagasse says.
Not all of the metropolitan region’s independent grocers are part of the Associated Grocers family of brands — although roughly 80% of them are, according to our reports — but it’s hard not to notice these common themes in the stores in our neighborhoods.
“We’re very fortunate to live in an area where people support the local economy, and grocery stores are just one of the things they continue to support,” Lagasse says. “We are very grateful for that.”
And no matter which comes first or where you shop, that sentiment rings true: When you’re grocery shopping in the Capital Region, there’s a lot to be thankful for.
This article was originally published in the November 2024 issue 225 Magazine.
