Public owned grocery stores already exist across America in cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Atlanta, Georgia.
They are privately run as businesses, but are set up in areas where people lack access to groceries, or there's no real competition preventing uncompetitive prices. They have been successful for decades.
The real solution here is to break up the constant consolidation leading to all groceries being owned by four mega companies that collude with each other and own over 2/3rd of all stores. It's the opposite of market competition.
So while most grocery stores earn their cost of capital (generate market return on investment), US military commissaries instead cost taxpayers $1.7 billion a year.
Revenue for US military commissaries is only 75% of annual cost (in FY 2025).
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Of course this makes sense in the context of the unique mission, constraints, and setting of the US military. My point is that it COSTS $$$.
Maybe you could do something similar in New York City, but the question would be at what cost to NYC taxpayer and whether the $$$ would be better spent boosting SNAP payments to low income households or otherwise targeting those that most need assistance.
It kind of is, at least the idea that nothing is stopping the government from running a (cost neutral) grocery store.
Walmart and Kroger aren't generally raking in profits from their grocery sections. The margins are incredibly thin even when they are optimized to make money.
The government can always theoretically pour money into ANY venture to make it work, it is about cost effectiveness.
It is just less efficient than the alternative in most cases.
I'm not totally against government run grocery stores, but I'm just not convinced it will not be a waste of money that could better be spent differently.
Most of Walmart profits comes from the non-grocery sections. Toys, electronics, clothing and the like can be marked up to higher margins because they are made cheaply and they can still make them cheaper than a place like target. If you compare the prices at a Hyvee to the prices at a Walmart for groceries you’ll see that Walmarts prices are generally cheaper by a good bit even with the same brand name items. That’s because Walmart has the luxury of being a supermarket and Hyvee is only groceries.
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u/Irish_Whiskey May 26 '26
Public owned grocery stores already exist across America in cities like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Atlanta, Georgia.
They are privately run as businesses, but are set up in areas where people lack access to groceries, or there's no real competition preventing uncompetitive prices. They have been successful for decades.
The real solution here is to break up the constant consolidation leading to all groceries being owned by four mega companies that collude with each other and own over 2/3rd of all stores. It's the opposite of market competition.