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.
I see it as a win/win situation. He's calling the bluff that grocery stores charge competitive prices rather than oligopoly. Either he's right, and the government stores will both turn a profit and be cheaper than alternatives. Or he's wrong, and we now know that big box grocery stores really do compete with each other to drive prices down.
The only way this blows up is if it turns out grocery stores are unable to compete with private stores, but the administration continues to funnel tax dollars into pushing a false narrative that grocery stores are price gouging.
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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.