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This concept of food desert It’s been around long enough to feel like a fact of nature. Tens of millions of Americans live in low-income communities without easy access to fresh grocery stores, and general consensus Namely, these places do not have the ability to attract and retain supermarkets. They are too poor or too sparsely populated to generate sufficient spending on groceries. Nor can they overcome the racist pattern of corporate redlining.
But these explanations fail to argue with an important fact: Although poverty and rurality will always be with us, But food deserts only returned in the late 1980s, and before that, small towns and poor neighborhoods often had grocery stores. or even many places (the word food desert used to be Declaration of honor in 1995 by a special working group that was studying a relatively new phenomenon at that time)
A poverty-stricken, majority-black neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Typical of this trend, in the 1960s the area had more than half a dozen grocery stores. study By anthropologist Ashanté Reese These include branches of the local district grocery co-op. Safeway Supermarket and black-owned independent businesses like Tip Top Grocery on Sheriff Road. However, in the 1990s, the number of grocery stores in Deanwood dwindled to just two, and today there are none.
Similar stories unfold across rural America along the same timeline. Until the 1980s Almost every small town Where North Dakota has grocery stores, many have two or more competing supermarkets. It’s almost now. half of rural North Dakota residents live in food deserts (the USDA defines food deserts as the Census System of Low Income Persons). where the nearest grocery store is more than 10 miles away in a rural area or more than a mile away in a city).
A number of state and federal programs have attempted to address the problem of food waste through tax rebates and other subsidies. To lure supermarkets to underserved communities These attempts failed. There is more food wasted now than in 2010, in the depths of the Great Recession. That’s because the proposed solutions misunderstand the origins of the problem.
Food shortages are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or population density. And these things are not happening across the country for no reason. Something happened Something of a change in federal policy, especially in the 1980s, should reward the largest retail chains for their performance. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and driving up food costs. Missing food will not disappear until the error returns.
This structure The decline of the grocery industry has been a national problem since the rise of large retail chains in the early 20th century, the largest of which was A&P, which in the 1930s quickly replaced local grocery stores and took over. towards market domination Congressional hearings and federal investigations found that A&P had unrelated advantages with greater efficiency. Better service or other legitimate means of competition, instead A&P uses its sheer size to pressure suppliers to receive preferential treatment over smaller retailers. Out of fear of losing their biggest customer. Food manufacturers had no choice but to sell to A&P at prices far below what they charged independent grocers, allowing A&P to continue its dominance.
Congress responded in 1936 by passing the Robinson-Patman Act. The law basically prohibits price discrimination. This makes it illegal for suppliers to offer special deals and retailers to make illegal demands. However, it allows businesses to You can pass on savings that are legal. If there really is less cost To sell products by truckload volume rather than on a case-by-case basis Suppliers can adjust prices accordingly, as long as each Retailers who buy by truckload receive the same discount.
Over the next four decades Robinson-Patman It is an important part of the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement agenda. For example, since 2012 From 1952 to 1964, the agency issued 81 formal complaints to block grocery suppliers from offering milk, oatmeal, pasta, cookies, and other products to big, good supermarket chains. Than offered to small grocery stores Most of these complaints were resolved when suppliers agreed to end price discrimination. Sometimes there are court appearances.
Over the decades Robinson-Patman was enforced. It was part of a strict mid-century antitrust regime. The grocery sector is highly competitive. With many stores vying for shoppers and a good balance of chains and independents, in 1954 the eight largest supermarket chains accounted for 25 percent of sales, a statistic that is hardly like that the same in 1982, although the company at the top had changed. Just as it has for decades. Americans in the early 1980s purchased more than half of their groceries in independent stores. This includes single-store businesses and small, locally owned chains. Local grocers are thriving alongside large, publicly traded companies like Kroger and Safeway.
This is because discriminatory pricing is illegal. Competition therefore shifts to other fronts. that is more healthy National restaurant chains are vying for innovation among independent businesses. This includes the first modern self-service supermarket. And later there were automatic doors, shopping carts and loyalty programs. Meanwhile Independent consultants work to match the efficiency of the network by forming wholesale cooperatives. This allowed them to buy goods in bulk and operate a distribution system that rivaled those of Kroger and A&P. A 1965 federal study that tracked grocery prices in several cities for one year. Large independent retailers were found to be less than 1 percent more expensive than large retailers. In summary, the Act Robinson-Patman It appeared to have worked as intended throughout the mid-20th century.
Then it was abandoned. In the 1980s, it was believed that strict antitrust enforcement was stifling American business. The Reagan administration then began dismantling the business. act Robinson-Patman still in the book But the new regime views it as an economically illiterate handout to inefficient small businesses. The government stopped enforcing it.
The move has led the retail market to focus on the largest chains. which can once again exercise power over suppliers Just as A&P did in the 1930s, Walmart was the first to fully understand the implications of the new legal landscape. It soon became famous for its hard-armed suppliers. This was a strategy that stimulated rapid expansion. By 2001, it had become national. biggest Grocery retailers Kroger, Safeway and other supermarket chains are starting with their programs.self integration”—centralizes procurement that was previously managed by regional agencies. to take full advantage of its power as a major national buyer Then, in the 1990s, they embarked on a merger spree. In just two years, Safeway acquired Vons and Dominick’s, while Fred Meyer absorbed Ralphs, Smith’s, and Quality Food Centers before being absorbed by Kroger. Suspension of the Act Robinson-Patman This makes it necessary to scale up.
Many deaths of independent retailers followed. When pressured by large networks Suppliers are therefore forced to compensate for their losses by increasing prices for small retailers, causing “water bed effect” that magnifies the difference. Price discrimination spreads beyond grocery stores. Busy bookstores, drug stores, and many other local businesses From 1982 to 2017, independent retailers’ market share fell from 53 percent to 22 percent.
If you must plan to end the enforcement of Robinson-Patman and the subsequent restructuring of the retail industry according to the timeline. It parallels closely the emergence and spread of food waste. Local retail businesses were once a mainstay of working class and rural communities. The inability to get fair prices since the 1980s has hit these retailers especially hard. Because at least customers can pay more. Those who are able to travel to cheaper chain stores in other neighborhoods or cities often do so exclusively. (however Food deserts were not the result of suburban sprawl and white people fleeing. As some observers suggest, by the 1970s more than More Americans live in the suburbs than in cities. But up to that point There are also low-income neighborhoods. more than More grocery stores per capita than middle class areas. Relations did not begin to recover until the 1980s).
Why don’t large chains fill the gaps when local stores close? They didn’t have to. In the 1960s, if a chain like Safeway wanted to compete for the grocery dollars Deanwood residents spent, it had to open a store in the neighborhood. But when independent stores close down Such chains would no longer need to invest in low-income areas. They can rely on people moving across town to other locations. Today, in fact, many Deanwood residents travel to Safeway outside their neighborhood to shop. This Safeway has something like this. Permanent problem with expired meat and rotting produce, which some locals refer to as “EunSafeway” but if there is no other choice People continue to shop there.
in rural areas These same changes mean that Walmart can tap into wider regions by locating supercenters in major cities. By living with people in a small place Where there are no more grocery stores to drive long distances to buy food. Independent grocers trying to establish themselves in more convenient locations will struggle to compete with Walmart on price, because suppliers who can’t afford to risk losing business to Walmart will always offer better prices than the mega-chain. Indeed, at the height of the epidemic As supply chain disruptions leave grocery manufacturers struggling to keep up with demand, Walmart Announced Severe penalties for suppliers that do not fulfill 98 percent of orders. Suppliers comply with the absence of independent grocers, which Noise to keep key products in stock even when Walmart shelves are full
The food desert problem will not be resolved without the rediscovery of the Robinson-Patman Act. Requiring tiered pricing will help restore the competitiveness of local retailers. This will provide immediate relief to entrepreneurs who recently opened grocery stores in the area of surplus food. just to find at them can’t buy In the same sense that Walmart and Dollar General make survival difficult. As local grocery stores reappear in these neighborhoods Chain supermarkets may also make a comeback. Seduced by a force more powerful than tax breaks: competition.
The Biden administration is starting to connect the dots. Alvaro Bedoya, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, is a proponent of enforcing the law. Robinson-Patman publicly and FTC chair Lina Khan are expected to file the first such lawsuit in the coming months. But the election of Donald Trump casts doubt on long-term outlook for Robinson-Patman rehabilitation Although the legislation has the support of some GOP House members, powerful donors are calling for corporate-friendly appointments to the FTC, hoping the incoming Trump administration will realize that. The rural and working-class voters who propelled him to power are among those most affected by food shortages. and from the widespread decline of local self-reliance. which spread throughout small towns In America since the 1980s, powerful tools have existed for reversing that decline. Any leader who truly cares about the country’s left-behind communities would use this.
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