IBERIA PARISH — After three years without a grocery store, residents in Jeanerette will soon have access to fresh food again.

The new Raintree Market is set to open Nov. 19, ending what city leaders describe as a food desert created after Mac's Sugar City Market, the city’s only full-service grocery store, was destroyed by fire in 2022.

“It really left a vacuum, a void— pretty much what we traditionally called a food desert,” Mayor Carol Bourgeois Jr. said.

Since the fire, many residents have had to travel out of town or rely on mobile food trucks and community groups for groceries.

Now, with the opening of Raintree Market, a partnership between the City of Jeanerette and the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, access to groceries and fresh produce will once again be available within city l

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