Is your neighborhood in a "food desert?" The first non-profit grocery store in the U.S. opened this week

The nation's first non-profit grocery store opened two days ago in St. Joseph, Missouri, narrowly beating Philabundance, the Philadelphia food bank, at selling food at discounted costs to low-income families. Actually, the claim of being the first non-grocery store could be debated, given the success of a mobile grocery store in Minnesota with 27 outlets that offers up to a 40% discount. Let's not quibble as Fresh Start, St. Joe's non-profit grocery store, starts this grand experiment because it's really about placing stores in or near "food deserts."

Putting aside food co-ops and similar ventures, it seems a bit of stretch to think that we had to wait until 2013 before someone came up with the notion of a non-profit grocery store. Shouldn't access to nutritious and affordable food be a basic right to everyone in one of the wealthiest nations of the world?



You can bet there's going to be strong opposition to these efforts, especially if they succeed. Despite the efforts at providing low-cost food to relieve hunger one Minnesota for-profit grocery store owner complained about the advantage of a tax-free nonprofit store. "It's just completely wrong," said Tony Oelmann, manager of Mike's Discount Foods. "How can they consider themselves a nonprofit if they do this bootlegging?" said Oelmann. "They are attempting to undercut a business."

And small business owners are right to complain -- they are at risk of losing business and in a worst case scenario seeing their store close. Chain stores can pull their grocery stores from unprofitable areas like what happened when Sunfresh pulled out of the Linwood Shopping Center in Kansas City years ago.

Strong support to address "food deserts"

US. Dept of Agriculture Economic Research Service map
shows FreshStart grocery store serving a "food desert"
in St. Joseph, Mo.

St. Joe's new low-cost grocery store is operated out of Second Harvest Community Food Bank, the food bank at 915 Douglas, which rests at the edge of one of the food deserts, identified by the USDA. “There are 52,000 individuals that need our support, currently we serve about 15,000 a week. So, there’s a huge gap from where we are today to where we are going and Fresh Start helps to expand that access,” said St. Joe food bank Chief Operating Officer Tamara Grubb during an interview with a Kansas City news outlet.

Philadelphia's efforts to place a non-profit grocery store in a food desert near low-income residents was made possible with a lot of financial support. "The Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Reinvestment Fund, and TD Bank, the organization will open Fare & Square, a 13,000-square-foot grocery store next spring on the west side of Chester, a city that has been without a grocery store for eleven years and one of thirty-five USDA-designated food deserts in the Delaware Valley."

The largest non-profit grocery store in the United States
After a bit of quick research I found that there's already a non-profit grocery store in the United States that provides deep discounts to low-income families all over the country. In fact, it's a store that places it in the top ten grocery store chains, plus it allows shoppers to use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/Food Stamps) and Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits.

The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) military commissary system allows family members to "save over 30 percent of what they would spend at nearby civilian grocery stores." With over 14 million active, reserve, retired military members and their families the DeCA system is available to over 4% of the US population, "while improving customer savings and satisfaction ratings," according to a report (PDF) defending this non-profit grocery store model (PDF).

The DeCA commissary system, also known as a post exchange (PX), "supplied the soldier with quality food at below market prices."

According to the report, the "military resale system has traditionally been defended along compassionate and mission grounds. That is, these programs are essential to care for our military personnel and their families and represent a reciprocal commitment on the part of the American people to recognize the service of our men and women in uniform."

Better yet this significant discount has been available to military service personnel for nearly 200 years -- since 1825 -- and is provided as a worthy benefit to all military service members -- active duty, reserve, retired, etc.

In fact, shoppers visit stores as many as 96 million per year.

Given the success and benefit of this non-profit grocery store model, perhaps it warrants a second look for an extensive expansion to non-military members of the U.S.