Students seek input on food access and insecurity across Macon

Gabriel Kopp, Murphy Center

January 22, 2026

This small food pantry in Beall’s Hill provides shelf stable food items to people who might be food insecure.

Students in Mercer University’s Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism are seeking input from the Macon community for a reporting project on food access and insecurity in Macon-Bibb County.

The issue is wide-ranging across Middle Georgia as 1 in 4 children and 1 in 6 adults face food insecurity, according to recent reporting from The Macon Newsroom. Annual surveys administered by the United States Department of Agriculture that focused on pinpointing food insecurity throughout the country were axed in September as President Donald Trump claimed that they had become “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.”

The city boasts a number of chain grocers from Wal-Mart to Aldi, but as Macon’s population has shifted, several have left the area without easy access to food. A Target on Eisenhower Parkway closed in February 2018, and Kroger quickly followed suit as it shuttered a store on Pio Nono Avenue in April 2018.

Relics of old neighborhood grocery stores can be seen across Macon from when the small businesses supplied residents with fresh produce, meat and other goods. A former pharmacy and grocery store in Beall’s Hill was at one point slated to be renovated and turned into a restaurant less than a mile from Mercer University’s campus, but those plans fell apart. And at 4081 Broadway, a commercial building that now houses Al’s Body Shop, was once Adkin’s Grocery, according to a Polk’s city directory from 1960.

The Korner Kupboard in Beall’s Hill has been vacant since the the mid-2000s but operated for more than 100 years as either a grocery or convenience store. The building itself dates to 1888 when it was a pharmacy. By 1918, it was the location of Isaac and Martha Simmons’ grocery, and continued to operate a grocery in the building until 1940, according to Historic Macon. (Debbie Blankenship)

Where access to grocery stores is difficult, convenience stores often fill the void. But what fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and other perishable items the convenience stores offer often falls below the threshold required by Macon-Bibb County, according to The Macon Newsroom.

The Mercer students are taking part in a journalism course for their senior capstone project, and they are conducting online surveys, found here and on The Macon Newsroom’s social media. The survey asks basic questions about Middle Georgians’ grocery shopping habits and seeks volunteers for interviews and feedback on what food issues matter most to you.