A recent article from the San Francisco Chronicle doesn't cover any new ground (supermarkets have been abandoning cities for decades, as we all know...), but it brings up a few points I'd like to address. Especially since there's a connection here between this article and a front page post of Jill's from a few days ago.
The simple answer is money. Although Cala is making money, the profit margin for a large supermarket isn't large. Food costs are up, vendors are charging more to deliver products. Wages and insurance costs are rising.
But more than that, supermarket sites are some of the last large real estate lots in the city. Eager developers are making such generous offers that store owners would be crazy to turn them down. No wonder supermarkets are an endangered species in the city.
I can't cite any studies, but I'm pretty sure that we can't eat high-rise condominium developments, hipster lofts, art galleries and boutiques (Hello, the Pearl District! Which is not coincidentally also the site of Portland's first and largest Whole Foods Market). Nonetheless, I'll soon find myself in the strange (for me...) position of defending places like Whole Foods below the fold, in just the introduction to what will end up being an interminable series of ramblings (and maybe even an insightful thought / idea or three...) on what it takes to make urban food systems work. |
| I believe there was an Edwards (that supermarket chain later became "Super Stop & Shop") on Frelinghuysen Avenue (NJ Route 27) within the city limits of Newark up until about 1994 or 1995, but that particular store shut down right around then. Since that time, for grocery shopping in Newark you're either hitting the bodega or the Exxon "Tiger Mart". Or if you have the time, energy or money...catching a bus way up to an A & P in Clifton or a Shoprite down in Woodbridge.
But the odd thing that always struck me about the local food system out that way was just how close (and very easily accessible via public transit) at least two (Montclair and Millburn) Whole Foods Markets were to Newark, East Orange, Irvington, etc...
In places like Essex County, NJ where many factors (climate, economic, transportation, etc...) present obstacles to immediate, comprehensive and affordable sustainable urban food systems like we have here where I now reside in Portland, Oregon; we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good for right now. And though I haven't set foot in a Whole Foods since I moved out here (only because I don't have to do so in order to eat well (and locally) here in Portland, with our excellent local food system which will of course be a central focus in this related series of ramblings from here on out...) 14 months ago; I can state with absolute certainty that unless things have drastically changed, that whole "Whole Paycheck" thing has always been a myth. Even when I was living in friends' damp, moldy leaking basement apartments of 250-plus year-old homes (that hadn't been cleaned since General George Washington was leading the Continental Army in battle against the British a few blocks from where they are today, and drinking and being 'entertained' at local bars that still stand...) in Rahway, NJ a few years ago; I shopped there regularly. And I always ate well on a (very) minimal budget.
All it takes is a bare minimum of skill and confidence in the kitchen (bring back home-ec (or whatever you want to call it, I prefer "life skills") classes for all in high school, now!). Though it's certainly available there, it's never been a requirement to buy $65 chunks of cheese or $25 an ounce chocolate at Whole Foods...it's just as easy to buy bulk long-grain organic brown rice for a buck or two a pound; and onions, peppers, squash, greens, bulk dried beans, etc... for very competitive prices.
One of the most nutritious, basic (and tasty!) human meals (rice and beans) can be made from raw ingredients for well under a dollar per serving at Whole Foods (and I still do it regularly from local co-ops and farmers markets out here while adding fresh veggies, sour cream and shredded cheddar - comes out to roughly ~ $1.50 a serving)...and even comfort foods - I can do homemade mac & cheese (my favorite food ever, which I still make at least once a week - bulk pasta, whole wheat flour, local hormone-free cheddar cheese and hormone-free butter and cream) and fried (organic Oregon crimini) mushrooms and wilted greens (local organic kale or chard) for under $1.75 a serving. Let's see Kraft match that in any terms other than "minutes"...they sure as fuck ain't matching it in taste though, believe you me! Come on over and try it some time...
:)
If we want, we can eat good and inexpensively at Whole Foods right now...and I personally did there once, in the not too distant past. But can we eat locally and sustainably there into the future, as they currently run their business? Sometimes, but overall not so much imo...
I'll get much further into that issue in future editions here, and I'll provide a fair warning here that they won't compare favorably to the local where it already exists. And I'll do all I can to suggest improvements to urban food systems that can be implemented locally, so that our cities won't have to depend so much on public corporations and such for their basic neccesities of life.
But until then? Back to the article linked to above...
If not supermarkets, then what?
"Are we going to become a city of farmers' markets?" asked Matt Holmes, a principal at Retail West Inc., a San Francisco property, tenant and real estate service.
What's wrong with competitively priced local growers and producers?
"What you are going to get is a series of chef-driven markets with highly specialized, prepared meals."
Bullshit. Unless you're suggesting that nobody besides 'chefs' are capable of cooking. All it takes is a little bit of heat and a few minutes of applying easily learned skills
I'd say it's long past time that Kraft, General Mills, Nestle and their ilk explain why exactly it is that they're so far qualified above the rest of us inre: food production, that we should just give it all up to them? |
