Photo: Canva
Should Chicago Be Getting Into the Grocery Business?
In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson is conducting a feasibility study to determine whether the city could open a municipally owned grocery store in an underserved neighborhood on the South or West side.
At least six grocery stores, including four Walmart locations, have closed on Chicago’s South and West sides over the past two years.
“All Chicagoans deserve to live near convenient, affordable, healthy grocery options,” Johnson said in a statement. “We know access to grocery stores is already a challenge for many residents, especially on the South and West sides … I am proud to work alongside partners to take this step in envisioning what a municipally owned grocery store in Chicago could look like.”
Last year, Chicago awarded a $13.5 million community investment grant to minority-owned company Yellow Banana to refurbish and reopen six grocery stores on Chicago’s South and West sides.
This past August, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed the Illinois Grocery Initiative, freeing up $20 million to invest in food deserts across the state “by incentivizing the opening of grocery stores, by independent grocers or local governments, in affected communities across the state.”
According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 63.5% of residents in West Englewood on the Southwest side of Chicago and 52% of residents in East Garfield Park on the West side live more than half a mile from their nearest grocery store.
Smaller municipalities have opened grocery stores, but Chicago would be the first major city to do so.
Expanding grocery access not only makes it easier for residents to purchase food, the city noted, but it keeps those dollars in the neighborhood.
“Not dissimilar from the way a library or the postal service operates, a public option offers economic choice and power to communities,” said Ameya Pawar, senior advisor at Economic Security Project, a partner on the initiative. “A city-owned grocery store on the South or West side of Chicago would be a viable way to restore access to healthy food in areas that have suffered from historic and systemic disinvestment.”
Sam Sánchez, a prominent Chicago restaurateur, tweeted that the initiative had a “noble intention” but the city would be “operating in the red and [losing] tax payers money.”
“Control crime and business will come,” Sanchez added.
Discussion Questions
Is a city-run grocer a viable solution to counter food deserts? What advice would you have for Chicago’s mayor or community leaders on Chicago’s South or West side?
Poll
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Gene Detroyer
Professor, International Business, Guizhou University of Finance & Economics and University of Sanya, China.
Patricia Vekich Waldron
Contributing Editor, RetailWire; Founder and CEO, Vision First
Absolutely not. It is not the job of the government – with its characteristic inefficiency – to run grocery stores in cities or elsewhere. What authorities should be doing is looking at how they can create conditions where stores thrive. Maybe that means being tougher on crime. Maybe that means reducing business tax and regulations. And maybe it means looking at zoning laws. There is an interesting article in Southern Urbanism that said overly strict zoning laws were responsible for the death of neighborhood food stores which traditionally served the needs of local people; this, the study argued, was forcing people to drive or go further afield to larger stores. That is the kind of thing policymakers should be looking at and remedying – not on making people more and more dependent on government.
The assault on retail locations is forcing a lot of new dilemmas on urban areas. In Chicago, the retailers have abandoned ship, creating a highly populated food desert. This is actually a great solution to the food desert problem. People in these food-arid regions are getting prayed upon by whatever purveyors choose to operate and the national players won’t run the risk.
Of course, government has never been efficient at anything, and even the best grocery chains have to be super efficient to turn a profit. The mayor will need a lot of help figuring out how to run grocery stores, but I don’t think anyone expects them to be profitable. Instead, I think they are needed to prevent the further downfall of Chicago. Hungry people tend to commit crimes, too.
So, if you can’t force grocery chains to keep operating in locations where they can’t do business and the residents only hope seems to be government-run stores, they better go find all those managers, cashiers, and all the other workers who used to work in the area. And that will mean jobs.
I could see value in using grocery retail in concert with educational and rehabilitative programs – perhaps even bundling library, law enforcement, and senior + affordable housing So no you don’t expect to turn big profits, but you may be offsetting other necessary expenses, and growing your citizens’ skill sets and resiliency. Not sure I’d put City of Chicago in charge of it, but maybe a strong university – needs to have crystal clear transparency in its operation.
If government was doing the job they are supposed to do, private enterprise would gladly fill the void. How about if government just provided the safe infrastructure necessary and maybe a tax incentive or two? There is a relationship between crime and consequences that is out of balance here. Restoring that balance would go a long way to restoring the incentives to operate safe, local, and profitable businesses again.
One of the main contributors to the obesity epidemic in America is lack of access to healthy nd nutritious foods. If the retail grocery industry is not able or willing to answer this call, government, and in this case, city government must try to. Kudo’s to Chicago for trying this.
Zel, I disagree strongly. The latest data indicate that 39.6 percent of U.S. adults are obese. Another 31.6 percent are overweight. Yet, the U.S. leads the world in access to nutritional food. The obesity epidemic far exceeds the poor parts of the country.
Gene, My point is that poorer areas have a higher rate of obesity, but totally agree that we as a country, need to do much more to combat obesity across all areas.
There is a reason the U.S. has food deserts, and the reason is not crime. (It may be an excuse, but it is not a reason.) Food deserts have existed for decades before the latest acceleration of shoplifting.
Food deserts are in poor communities. Poor communities can not feed the bottom line of food retailers, and companies are not charities.
While I hope we are not talking about the city operating stores, I see it as an essential initiative to provide access to good food at reasonable prices. QSR will fill the bellies cheaply, but they won’t add to the community’s health. The objective should be to make nutritional alternatives affordable.
There is one more issue that must be overcome. I don’t have an answer to this one. The U.S. leads the world with the availability of nutritional food but is among the worst in the world in a healthy diet.
If anyone has gone on a recent road trip to the South and Midwest, there are stretches and miles of underserved communities without access to affordable healthy food and nutrition options. Dollar Stores are the few retail businesses serving these communities, and aside from that, there are hardly any grocery operations aside from a Walmart every 50 or so miles.
It’s very concerning to see such prominent cities such as Chicago and San Francisco experiencing with retailers and grocers having to close locations due to mass theft, a lack of safety, and the infrastructure required to run a safe retail operation. The solution is absolutely not having government-run grocery operations in cities or these underserved communities.
The prioritization for the US government in this situation has to be on the safety, security, infrastructure, and store and associate and employee wellness for retailers and grocers to serve these communities. A government-operated grocery business is not a scalable or viable solution.
This is a fool’s errand and a complete waste of taxpayer money. Local, state and federal government’s number one priority is to ensure our cities and towns are safe so commerce can thrive and serve residents from all socio-economic backgrounds. Chicago is one of our country’s most beautiful cities, but what’s happening to it from a crime standpoint is extremely painful to stomach. Moreover, if the city of Chicago can’t control its crime, does anyone believe the same set of government leaders know how to run an effective, productive, profitable grocery operation?
This is an interesting concept. I’m not sure if the government can successfully run a retail grocery store. However, giving a grant or incentive to a retailer to come into the underserved neighborhoods is another story. There has to be some assurances. There’s a reason the traditional retailers pulled out of the areas. It wasn’t feasible for a number of reasons. The government will have to eliminate these reasons if it wants a good retailer to serve these neighborhoods.
Municipal markets were once quite common – of course the fact that we’re using the past tense might tell us something – but they served the whole city, not just some area that otherwise wouldn’t have stores. Altho the moniker “food desert” makes for provocative headlines, I wonder if we’re not missing the point here: are the distances (to the nearest market) really greater than in suburban or rural areas ?? I doubt it (and certainly not if the metric is a half-mile); what the residents really lack is access…i.e. this is a transportation issue
I’d much rather see the City partner with seasoned operator(s) to open stores in food deserts. Why not use it as an opportunity to employ local students, justice impacted individuals, or others that can acquire skills while serving their communities.
I love the City of Chicago. It spans all kinds of people, in food culture and represents the very fabric of our country. But there are neighborhoods who badly need access to fresh food and good nutrition.
Running grocery stores as a city-owned endeavor will not go well, however. Its tough to make a store run profitably with such slim margins, to merchandise well, to work with suppliers and growers and maintain labor within budget. Elected officials might be assuming it’s as simple as putting out farmers market fresh items on an ice cart everyday. But they are in for a shock.
Taxpayers deserve better than this boondoggle. And so do the residents in these poor neighborhoods. The reason many stores have closed is because of constant theft, safety issues and not enough sales and customers to make it work. If the city wants to offer tax incentives, and if elected leadership would divert needed police resources to protect shoppers, and enforce criminal theft laws, real grocers might stand a chance.
Seriously? What better example of government overreach could there be? Let’s go back–the city is too dangerous for retailers to operate, and “everyone” is entitled to groceries, so the city is going to step in and run a grocery store….
What could go wrong?
I agree with the naysayers and I live near Chicago. The food deserts are real and need it but the poverty and crime are equally real and it will fail. Numerous police and security will be needed when it is open, and this takes more money. These areas cannot support an Aldis or a nice well stocked dollar store.. South and westside residents shop in nearby suburbs. , I have seen so many decent stores come and go out of business. The unsold food will go to waste,as well. Parking lots might be unsafe. Most shoppers are honest but gangs could kill it.