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More than 100 people congregated in the parking lot of Rise Community Market on its opening day a little over a year ago. As they listened to celebratory speeches, the audience erupted into joyful exclamations: “Mercy!” “Wonderful!” “Wow!” “All right!” Colorful homemade signs raised by local leaders beckoned the crowd to join in: “We!” “Are!” “No!” “Longer!” “A!” “Food!” “Desert!” […]

Many stores that receive subsidies shutter their doors soon after opening or fail to open at all. Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica examined 24 stores across 18 states, each of them either newly established, preparing to open or less than five years old when they received funding through the federal USDA Healthy Food Financing Initiative in 2020 and 2021. As of June, five of these stores had already ceased operations; another six have yet to open, citing a variety of challenges including difficulties finding a suitable location and limited access to capital.

Illinois’ record is similarly disappointing. In 2018, Illinois officials highlighted the opening of six grocery stores that had received startup funds over several years from a $13.5 million grocery initiative of former Gov. Pat Quinn’s. Four of them have closed. […]

“The main concern with them is prices,” said Dossie, explaining why some Cairo residents haven’t done much shopping at Rise. The 32-year-old mother of five was unemployed before she became one of the store’s first employees. She shops there to support Rise and because she doesn’t have a car, but she wishes it could offer discounts like chain grocers. “I know, me personally, I have a big family and I need to be able to get bulk for a cheaper amount.” […]

State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, who lives near Chicago and sponsored the bill that became Illinois’ grocery initiative, has seen evidence that the investment might not be effective on its own. Last year, to research solutions to food deserts, Canty visited a small supermarket in the tiny town of Winchester, about 50 miles west of the state capital in Springfield, that had been hailed as a success story.

John Paul Coonrod, the store’s board president and chair, said he told Canty during her visit that the state’s initiative amounted to a “drop in the bucket” for what small grocers need to survive.

Great Scott! Community Market did well at first, but it later lost customers to a Walmart and then a new Dollar General that included a grocery market. It was hard to compete, and the store closed just a few months after Canty’s visit — five years after it opened.

Go read the rest.

posted by Isabel Miller
Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 9:31 am

Comments

Maybe there’s a better way to achieve this desired goal, which does not rely on being laser focused on the stores themselves.

Having access to transportation completely eliminates the concept of food deserts.

Many townships in my area offer a ’senior shuttle’ during the day. The purpose is advertised as a way to get seniors to medical appointments.

A little bit of change and repurposing(or creating) such a program could rather easily create a free daily shuttlebus to the nearest large chain supermarket location. Even if its a 40-min drive one way, it would still provide the reliable access to what’s needed.

I think a lot of these food desert programs are often missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. In focusing on building unsustainable physical structures in certain areas, they are missing the goal of providing an opportunity and ability to get to that food. The resources needed to drive people to an existing sustainable location are far less than trying to create a new physical building(grocery store) in an area where it will never be sustainable.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 10:02 am
When the private sector thinks there’s no market for it, either they’re right or they’re wrong.

If the state steps in and opens a store and there’s really no market for it, the store will close.

If the state steps in and the actually is a market for it, private competitors will follow and the state-sponsored market will close. But the community will still have a store.

Sounds like a complicated trade off.

Comment by Socially DIstant Watcher Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 10:15 am
Driving 25 minutes for ALDI and Walmart is the norm for me. Our grocery store closed 7 years ago. Even before that, though, trips out of town were the norm. An $80 ALDI trip would cost over $200 at the local grocery store. So you would get your emergency items there, fresh bakery and deli items, beer. That’s it. Unless the government is going to act as a wholesaler, these corner grocery stores are never going to be profitable enough to survive. Maybe a ride-share coop is a better idea than a grocery coop.

Comment by Ducky LaMoore Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 10:37 am
The “food desert” activist people refuse to acknowledge that the model of local neighborhood grocers is no longer viable in the US. Grocery is a low-margin business that relies on high traffic volumes and purchasing bulk products from vendors in order to generate revenue. Outside of perpetual government subsidy, these feel-good grocery projects will fail eventually.

You have to work within the realities of the market. The amount of money it takes to put a co-op together would go much farther as subsidized delivery fees for low-income residents from viable grocers (even if they are at some distance). But no one wants to hear that.

Comment by sulla Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:17 am
Fascinating article. I am left with the impression that it is sadly a losing game to address at the local or state level and more about the federal deregulation initiative that has been going on for 40 years now, specifically illustrated by the the Robinson-Patman Act. However, an effectiveness analysis by the state or federal government might yield better insights. I believe we had a good discussion of an article about a Dollar General moving into a small town and its impact on the local grocery store a year or two back, but I can’t remember enough to reference it.

Comment by Earnest Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:19 am
Ducky LaMoore and the Invisible Man make good points. However, there are larger issues at stake. It is not just about the convenience of having a grocery store in one’s community. A grocery is also a driver of community development and a community point of connection. A grocery store is an “anchor institution” that serves as a point of hope for a struggling community.

Comment by Scamp640 Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:19 am
If the community market is being beat out by Walmart and other chains, is there really a food desert?

Comment by Duck Duck Goose Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:33 am
Englewood Whole Foods 2.0?

Comment by Alton Sinkhole Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:38 am
=== there are larger issues at stake. It is not just about the convenience of having a grocery store in one’s community. A grocery is also a driver of community development and a community point of connection. A grocery store is an “anchor institution” that serves as a point of hope for a struggling community. ===

That is understood, but this program is not working and most likely will fail for the reasons stated in the above comments. Why throw good money after bad just because of the ancillary benefits you noted. At the end of the day, people need access to food because they need to eat. That should be the focus. How do you get fresher, higher quality food into the hands of those that currently do not have access.

Comment by Barrister's Lectern Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:40 am
Comments about the importance of transportation are on the mark. When I first moved to Springfield, (decades ago) I lived in a small rental on the east side. My nearest grocery was a rundown IGA, with limited selection, and unimpressive produce and fresh meat. More than once I found meat was recycled from a more prosperous store, and relabeled for our local market. I had a car, so I had choices.

Comment by Langhorne Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:42 am
I like the ideas expressed here and think they are better but my thinking of transportation is in the opposite direction. That is, I think if there was a central location in the food desert (say an old abandoned grocery store) where a few days a week the chain store would bring a large group of orders, that’d be best. Customers would order online, which is now common, but instead of delivering just one order, they would all come to the remote community on the same day and time for people to go grab their bags and pay.

Comment by Lurker Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 11:59 am
@ Barrister’s Lectern. I am not convinced that we are throwing good money after bad. We have problem. We need to find ways to solve it. Cooperative models have worked for centuries. There are many examples of successful cooperative grocery stores. It might become self-sufficient. We don’t know until we try. Other options do include finding transportation solutions. But those could be more expensive. Of course, we could just sit and watch the communities fade away. What is your proposal to provide food access for communities without public transit and where car ownership is low? Keep in mind that many of these food deserts are in rural areas. Maybe Dollar Stores are the best we can do. I hope we can do better so that we are helping communities to build on their own assets rather than simply throwing money at the problem. Admittedly, this is a very challenging issue to resolve.

Comment by Scamp640 Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 12:13 pm
===A grocery is also a driver of community development===

Is there research to quantify that?

===a community point of connection…a point of hope===

What does that mean, and how should we weigh its value in the big picture of where to allocate finite public resources?

===it is sadly a losing game to address at the local or state level===

This actually sounds like something perfect to address at the state level. The state could adopt laws to prohibit price discrimination, subsidize transit and delivery services, or even implement a grocery facilities review board (similar to the one for health facilities) to prevent high-cost, low-value (e.g., Dollar General) and multi-line monopolies (e.g., Walmart) from displacing local bona fide grocers.

===Even if its a 40-min drive===

Time is something lower-income communities can spare the least. After working a double shift, picking up the kids from daycare, trying to get food on the table, house cleaned, help with homework, etc., there is not enough time to spend 2 hours getting food potentially multiple times per week. If their choice is between a 40-min drive and a 10-min drive that is twice as expensive, my money is on the 10-min drive being the dominate source of their food along with fast food and convenience store junk.

Comment by thechampaignlife Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 12:21 pm
“Of course, we could just sit and watch the communities fade away.”

If that’s what happens as the population ages out, then that’s what happens.

Ghost towns exist for a real reason. I’ve made it a point to bring this up many times by saying people in the midwest should regularly visit the western US where boom-bust cycles happened within a single generation and towns came and went just as fast. The rarity of any actual towns like that here have given many people the false impression that because a town exists now, that gives it an infinite charter to exist forever no matter what.

Many of the things you are lamenting the absence of, community meeting place, anchor, etc. Those are not just ancillary items. They are second and third order outcomes of an underlying structure which has to exist first. It’s nice to want them to exist, but that doesn’t mean they will exist without those underlying structures existing first. You can’t use government to spin that up out of nowhere. It has to arise out of something else as a consequence in order to be sustainable.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 12:55 pm
This is how Capitalism works…for the poor.

Comment by Dotnonymous x Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 2:05 pm
In small town rural IL, the supplanting of small town grocery stores by Casey’s and Dollar General proves that there is a model that works. Although the fresh groceries are lacking or non existent, my daughter can drive 10 miles to a town that has an excellent local store…again bringing the transportation angle. I think it’s just a matter of time till the small town chains try a go of it in urban America, since it might be a growth opportunity.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 3:52 pm
I don’t think that there is a single person commenting on how transportation is the simple fix to food access would actually accept this situation in their own community. I detect a significant middle-class and suburban bias in the comments.

Comment by Scamp640 Friday, Aug 9, 24 @ 3:59 pm

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