By CLIFFORD GOLDSTEIN
As a real estate developer, I’ve helped open many major chain grocery stores in Los Angeles. As a member of a blue ribbon commission recently convened by the Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores, I’ve looked critically at the impact of the grocery industry on Los Angeles. Finally, as a native Angeleno, I count on our elected officials and the business community to partner together in building a healthy city.
In each of these roles, I’m troubled by the disparity that exists between how the grocery industry impacts underserved and affluent communities in this city. It is a disparity that leads to painful consequences for the often low-income residents of underserved neighborhoods and for the broader community as well.
Let me share some sobering realities identified recently by our blue ribbon commission. First, there are entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles existing as “food deserts,” meaning those residents must drive to another community to find a grocery store. In those underserved communities where stores do exist, they are most often independent or discount stores. To illustrate this, we surveyed five ZIP codes comprising what used to be known as South Central Los Angeles. Within those ZIP codes, there are no major chain stores and four independent/discount stores (think Superior, Vallarta, etc.). By contrast, in the five ZIP codes typically used to identify West Los Angeles, there are 13 stores. Six are major chains (Vons, Ralphs or Albertsons) and seven are high-end (think Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, etc.). In my own neighborhood, Vons currently operates three stores within approximately a mile of my home.
Typically, independent/discount stores offer a more limited array of healthy options and services (no deli, produce section, pharmacy, etc.). Moreover, they rarely employ the environmental standards that major chains have adopted; they pay their workers less and, according to testimony, don’t adhere to the same quality standards as the major chains. The net result for underserved communities is one of two scenarios: Either they have no store at all or they have a store lacking in quality and healthy food options.
Financial factor
As an explanation for this grocery landscape, I often hear that it’s difficult for the major chains to make money in communities like South and East Los Angeles. Yet, in our research, we’ve heard from countless residents who say they actually leave their community to shop for groceries at major chain stores in other neighborhoods. Why? They leave because they have no other options.
This was underscored by another recent study carried out by Social Compact, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit. Like us, it found buying power in South and East Los Angeles to be greatly underestimated and largely untapped. Indeed, their study found that over $100 million leaves those communities each year to buy groceries in other communities.
From a business perspective, this means the major grocery chains are missing a major opportunity. From a taxpayer perspective, this means a large burden is placed on public services by the health-related problems that disproportionately attack underserved communities who lack access to healthy food alternatives. Both perspectives demand much-needed leadership and creative policy-making by our elected officials.
Our blue ribbon commission has concluded that the stakes for the city are too great and the potential for creative solutions too close for City Hall not to engage. On a practical level, if we apply a long-term view, this type of disparity damages the business climate. On a moral level, we simply believe that quality food access should be a right rather than a privilege.
Therefore, we recommend that city leaders employ a two-prong approach: First, identify and build upon existing incentives to attract major chains to underserved communities; second, establish citywide standards for grocery operations in Los Angeles that address a broad range of issues, including the development of stores in underserved neighborhoods, environmental impacts, job quality and food quality.
We leave it to our elected leaders to determine what policies to implement. We intend, however, to advocate aggressively for action. Food access, like the environment, is ultimately a public health issue. As a business community and as taxpayers, we can ill-afford to have entire swaths of Los Angeles mired in poor health, poverty and isolation from healthy food. If we allow it, the consequences for the community’s workforce, schools, public health system and general fund will prove damaging on a level we can’t ignore.
Clifford Goldstein is a senior partner with J.H. Snyder Co. and serves as a commissioner on the Blue Ribbon Commission on L.A.’s Grocery Industry convened by the Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores.
