Why is there a shortage of grocery stores and fresh food options in Wards 7 and 8?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should we bring back home ec?

Did it ever leave?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:- Lack of sufficient demand for healthy food, due to reasons
- Theft: shoplifting, robberies, crooked employees
- Too many rude/disruptive shoppers
- Activist/City demands to hire locals, but dearth of interested candidates with employable skills (reliability, promptness, politeness, customer service focus, employment history, etc)

Everything but the bolded is bs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Redeeming food benefits at farmers markets suggest that demand IS present. Also, the brisk business done by produce markets all over southern Brooklyn (particularly in lower income immigrant communities) tells me that being poor and opting for fresh produce is not at all mutually exclusive.

Interestingly, the produce there costs significantly less than in does in supermarkets here. I am wondering how those businesses can be successful and compete with grocery stores economies of scale, and what lessons can be applied here.

The businesses are successful because they deal only with produce (and maybe a few select items such as baked goods and candied fruit). A successful supermarket is one that does well in the meat and fish departments, where they have to be careful with highly perishable inventory. Theft is huge in the meat department, so the supermarket can suffer enormous losses there. Supermarkets also sell health and beauty items, which are easy to steal, especially cosmetics. Other problem areas are cheese and other small dairy products, as well as the candy and individual drink sections. The produce markets cover a much smaller area than a supermarket, too, so it is easier to monitor theft and item destruction.

The produce markets also do well because they sell produce at low prices, which in turn clears out inventory quickly and results in less waste. They focus on doing one thing very well - produce - and turn a good profit from it.

It is also very interesting that relatively poor Hispanic/Asian/Caribbean communities don't suffer from 'food desserts'. I lived in one, but there was plenty of ultra cheap produce around. Food desserts are much more nuanced that poor/rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Igrocery buying power of W7/8 is huge and anectdotally it seems most of us shop in MD or Cap Hill/Noma.
I make healthy food choices and could walk to that Safeway, but never shop there because it's an awful Safeway.

In MD/ Cap Hill/Noma, do the grocery stores have lower costs? Are they able to stack food past the registers, or outside the doors?

By revealed preference, they are more profitable - but they may have both higher costs & higher revenue - hard to disentangle without more data.

[Anonymous]

Maybe DC government can run fresh vegi, egg, fruit truck in the neighborhood twice or three times a week. Hire the crime interrupters in the neighborhood to assist the driver to hand out the food. Because the food truck picks up fresh produce in the morning, no food will rotten in the truck over night. Crime interruptors are paid by city and already in the neighborhood so there is the local or community factors in the project. From timime to time, city can hire famous chef to go to the neighborhood to demonstrate some cooking tricks. Chef Jose is famous for helping poor outside of the US and donate to Covid affected people, I am sure he would be happy to help inner city poors.

[Anonymous]

It is also very interesting that relatively poor Hispanic/Asian/Caribbean communities don't suffer from 'food desserts'. I lived in one, but there was plenty of ultra cheap produce around. Food desserts are much more nuanced that poor/rich.

I imagine that some sociologist/anthropologist has analyzed this, but my guess is that the history of slavery in this country has a lot to do with the food choices that multi-generationally poor AA populations make. Enslaved people were given the leftovers of the available food in the antebellum South---which is why historic "soul food" is things like chitlins (pig entrails)---plus, southern country cooking (for both white and black populations) deals with vegetables by either breading and frying them (okra, squash), boiling them in fatback lard until they are limp (collards and green beans), or combining them with tons of butter and sugar (sweet potatoes). and then serving the foregoing with tasty but not nutritionally substantive carbs such as mac n cheese or biscuits. Those eating habits were carried out of the South during the great migration. When you never had the healthiest habits to begin with---shifting into processed foods and sugary soft drinks is a natural shift.

Poor immigrants from tropical climates grew up with a ready availability of fresh fruit. I help out with a local homeless shelter, and it is noticeable how the Latino and Asian clients stock up on the bananas first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In addition to the chronic problem of theft, the broader challenge from a public health perspective isn't one of supply (lack of access to healthy food) but of demand:

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-not-blame-growing-nutrition-gap-between-rich-and-poor-study-finds

Implying there is a greater level of theft in poor urban areas is extremely racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In addition to the chronic problem of theft, the broader challenge from a public health perspective isn't one of supply (lack of access to healthy food) but of demand:

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-not-blame-growing-nutrition-gap-between-rich-and-poor-study-finds

Implying there is a greater level of theft in poor urban areas is extremely racist.

LOL you've obviously never worked in a retail establishment or grocery store in a city. Has nothing to do with race as much as w/ the neighborhood income level.

And isn't the racist the person who assumes that the PP was talking about people of a certain race when there's no evidence he/she was?

[Anonymous]

Someone opened an organic market (I think it was Yes!) in Ward 7 and it didn’t last. It was always a ghost town in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The exhibit shined a light on the challenge and consequences, and also on individuals working to fix it. However, I did not walk away understanding why specific grocery stores left, or why an open air produce market (like, for example, Three Guys From Brooklyn), doesn’t exist there.

The museum is hosting a virtual panel on the topic on August 19, which I plan to attend to learn more. Thanks to all who shared your thoughts.

Unfortunately, the truth is always unsavory to educated and well off individuals as well as those who suggest things like is food injustice bc the truth doesn’t have anyone to blame but the individual. And people simply can’t accept that people are choosing to be unhealthy and overweight.

Junk food and food high in fat and sugar taste good. And people like to eat things that taste good to them - see article posted above for an example
So no giving people carrots isn’t going to make them not want or but carrot cake.

Being obese has become far more socially acceptable among lower income individuals over the past 20 yrs and there are stats that support that Black women are more likely to be overweight than not. I get it bc I am overweight myself and it is just easier to eat the food you like and not obsess over calories and fat everyday. It takes less energy and one less thing to worry about.

https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=25

[Anonymous]

I work with families in Wards 7 and 8 and we partner with an organization that gives fresh, local produce away free or at almost no cost. They even deliver for free. Very few takers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should we bring back home ec?

Did it ever leave?

Yes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't Safeway and Giant at one point have stores in those wards? I think the reason they left was because of theft. Hard to justify a store if more money walks out the doors than goes in the cash register.

Now a seasonal produce stand, I have no clue why there are none. Seems like some local farmer could set up a stand to sell their fruit and veggies. I guess the DC government would want their share, that's probably why there are none.

If chains left due to theft, how would the local farmer survive?

People don't steal fresh fruit and veggies.

No, but they don't buy them either.

I live in Ward 7, within walking distance to the only grocery store in the Ward. I still drive to the Safeway on 14th st most of the time because the produce at the Ward 7 Safeway is godawful, and the produce is godawful because it sits and sits while nobody buys it.

I'm not making a judgement call on people who choose not to buy fresh produce, there are tons of factors why they might not. Preprepared and prepackaged food is often cheaper and faster than cooking from scratch, and less well off people may not have the time between working multiple jobs with odd schedules to cook full meals with fresh veggies as opposed to picking up a box of Kraft mac and cheese for 99 cents.

That doesn't change my observations at the store though, which is cart after cart of frozen meals, ramen, soda, canned and boxed food and rarely a fresh veggie in sight. Again, no judgement, people can buy what they want, but often times it really isn't about lack of access to fresh food, it's lack of interest.

EBT let’s you buy whatever you want as far as food goes.

Wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work with families in Wards 7 and 8 and we partner with an organization that gives fresh, local produce away free or at almost no cost. They even deliver for free. Very few takers.

OP here. The markets I was referencing in NYC sell produce for significantly less than what the same produce costs in supermarkets. Certainly cheaper than Yes! Organic market. However, it is not free.

Are individuals you work with responsible for feeding families, or are they, say, young, single and prefer not to cook? What are some reasons cited for lack of interest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should we bring back home ec?

Did it ever leave?

Yes?

The very concept of Home Ec is heterosexist.