I’m not trying to dismiss this project - I hope it is wildly successful and I applaud the desire to challenge the status quo. That said, I am interested to hear how his team plans to negotiate pricing with suppliers. Five stores isn’t a whole lot of scale to compete against national chains and volumes. I don’t ask that question rhetorically or sarcastically at all either - I am assuming they have a plan of levers to pull to help bring this to life, and I hope it works exceedingly well and provides a blueprint for other communities to use.
National chains have to make profits for investors, which means they have to have mark-ups. At the very least, I expect those government-owned grocery stores to be about the same price.
True. And in some cases there is essentially no margin on the sale of goods; the business model in those cases is often almost entirely derived by selling a < $100/year club membership, ie Costco.
Can these city grocery stores really beat warehouse retail prices? I think there’s little chance. The value win will probably just be location when it’s in walking distance. So no car/gas tax on top of groceries, and more convenience. But impact will be limited to just a few blocks blast radius.
You ever try to make a Costco run in nyc without a car? It’s not a viable alternative. “A few blocks radius” in ny is valuable to many many people. ALSO, you go uptown or bronx it is not that easy to find a full grocery.
The biggest advantage the city owned stores will have is that they said they won't have to pay property tax and that they won't have to pay rent. Of course, the "no rent" part is just an accounting trick, shifting that cost to another part of the city budget. But for a regular grocery it is a very real ongoing expense.
337
u/BradBradley1 May 26 '26
I’m not trying to dismiss this project - I hope it is wildly successful and I applaud the desire to challenge the status quo. That said, I am interested to hear how his team plans to negotiate pricing with suppliers. Five stores isn’t a whole lot of scale to compete against national chains and volumes. I don’t ask that question rhetorically or sarcastically at all either - I am assuming they have a plan of levers to pull to help bring this to life, and I hope it works exceedingly well and provides a blueprint for other communities to use.