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I've been heavily involved in a city council before that was trying to attract stores (especially a grocery store), so I'm pretty familiar with how it works, an
by freedomben 3y ago
I've been heavily involved in a city council before that was trying to attract stores (especially a grocery store), so I'm pretty familiar with how it works, and this mostly incorrect. In fact, people going out of their way to get the produce elsewhere works against a new store, because the stores see that as cannabilization should they open a new closer location.
The decision to open new stores is mostly based on "number of daytime wallets in the area," which itself is mostly tied to the other existing businesses in the area. For example, for one major grocery chain, they wouldn't even consider it until we had 50,000 daytime wallets. For a commonly known gigantic home improvement chain, they wanted 100,000. It doesn't matter how badly people in the area want it. It just comes pretty mathematically with growth.
If you already have a grocery store that doesn't carry fresh produce, you can (sometimes) improve things by speaking with the store management, but beyond that you're pretty much out of luck unless you are willing to open your own store.
- Aunche 3y agoBy "go out of the way," I just mean make some sort of sacrifice when it comes to getting fresh produce (e.g. gardening or paying more for vegetables). Even when we're talking about leaving your area, you're still increasing demand for vegetables somewhere, which prevents food deserts from spreading.
- Workaccount2 3y agoDollar stores are the killer here. They can easily undercut regular grocery stores (low selection, low worker count) but they do not have produce sections. So people just give up the produce section to get all the other processed stuff cheaper.
- freedomben 3y agoYes indeed, that's a real challenge
- BenjiWiebe 3y agoThankfully our local dollar store has a pretty decent produce section. Dollar General. I'm aware that we have one of the better dollar generals out there. (Hillsboro KS) By decent I mean decent for a dollar store. They have apples and oranges and cabbage and lettuce etc, no beets or leeks or fresh cilantro.
- abe_m 3y agoWas this effort at the request of residents of this food desert? Or was this an initiative of people outside of the area the proposed stores would serve?
- freedomben 3y agoYes this was primarily at the request of residents as they frequently had to drive 20 to 25 minutes to get to a grocery store with fresh produce (and by "fresh" I mean "Walmart". Other stores were even further. Take that for what you will). The mayor's office did also have broader commercial development goals as the strain of growth and traffic was brutalizing the budget. If we could put a grocery store in town, that would be highly appreciated by the people, and also cut a ton of traffic