In Atlantic City, where high end hotels and casinos abound.

There's still not a single supermarket for local residents.

Instead, they're forced to drive out of the seaside resort town to a chain grocery store or take public transportation that comes at a hefty price.

Now, the state and a local hospital system Virtua Health hope to change that by bringing a year round grocery store on wheels into the communities that need it most.

Melissa Rose Cooper reports.

My first time here, honey, I bought tea bags, I bought bananas, I bought oranges and I bought grapes.

This is my second time here today.

I bought milk and bread.

Well, I bought bread earlier, but I need it more, which wasn't a problem for Delorese Butler-Whaley since this mobile grocery store is within walking distance from her Atlantic City home, she says normally she'd have to travel pretty far to get the same things.

If you walk, it's like maybe my leg.

It's like an hour you know?

And I just have someone with me.

And if I catch the bus or catch a cab, that's $10 up and $10 back now, every Friday.

Butler Whaley and her neighbors can come here and get their shopping done thanks to a virtual house.

Eat Well Food Access Program.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority teaming up with the health care system to bring its mobile grocery store to Atlantic City is exactly how it sounds.

It's a small grocery store on wheels.

If you get a chance to go inside, you see that you're greeted with fresh produce.

You move on to some staple pantry items.

You can get your rice and your beans and pasta and things like that there.

And we have fridge and freezer.

So you get your proteins, meat and seafood seafoods, a really big seller for us, and then a dairy case.

And then you go right to the back and check out.

Many of the products are the same things.

You'll find the traditional stores, but at prices there are 30 to 50% less in the supermarket, making it more affordable for families.

It's one of the main reasons.

April Schetler assistant vice president of Community Health Engagement for Virtual Health, says the mobile grocery store is so important.

Atlantic City is one of those cities where, from the surface, it might look like casinos and wonderful restaurants and shows.

But when you really start to drive around and look, there's so many wonderful communities here, vibrant communities, but they're really struggling to have those basic needs met.

And again, transportation is a huge barrier, as well as access to a full service grocery store here in the city that's affordable.

So you know, when you when you peel back some of the layers of the city, as wonderful as it is, we're really just trying to give the residents a hand up and just allow them to have it a little bit easier to access affordable food through the winter months.

Atlantic City has been considered a food desert for years and remains without a supermarket.

Plans were in the works to bring a shop right in the city.

With a groundbreaking ceremony taking place in 2021.

But after the state's Casino Reinvestment Development Authority rejected several proposals to build a Full-Service Supermarket in Atlantic City earlier this year.

The supermarket chain pulled out.

It's devastating.

You know, we told the people that it was going to open and it didn't, you know, for what the reasons are, we are where we are.

So we just got to find a solution, a permanent solution.

This is a temporary fix and make it happen.

But for now, residents like Butler Whaley say they're happy the mobile grocery store is around.

Come on.

Can't get it.

Can't get any better.

You know what I'm saying?

This is good.

This is a good thing.

I love it.

And I just hope I see it like all over the city, not just here, you know, in different places in the city.

The mobile grocery store will continue coming to Atlantic City for the next several months.

Virtual Health is hoping to also make it available on Saturdays soon.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Melissa Rose Cooper.