In The News

Coalition plans grocery outlets
Group focuses on community centered solutions to Food Desert

By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen
June 29, 2009

DETROIT — A broad coalition devoted to improving Detroit’s food security is working with underserved communities and state legislators to bring fresh food options to several neighborhoods.

The M.O.S.E.S. Supermarket Task Force is a partnership anchored by M.O.S.E.S. (Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength), a group of around 60 area congregations, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 876. The diverse group hopes to rally around the opening of several planned grocery outlets throughout Detroit.

“We believe that quality markets are critical to good health and neighborhood security,” M.O.S.E.S. President Reverend Kevin Turman says. “It’s a moral issue — and so it’s also a religious one.”

The coalition has earned the attention of Detroit area lawmakers. Michigan state representatives Gabe Leland and David Nathan hosted an Urban Policy Committee forum June 19 at the East Lake Baptist Church on East Jefferson.

The Supermarket Taskforce is securing a former Farmer Jack site in that area for what will hopefully be the first of many markets run by, and partly owned by, the community.

The forum revolved around the core issues involved in repopulating the Detroit area with fresh fruit and produce-carrying markets.

Leland told the Michigan Citizen that a legislative strategy still needs to be pursued that will impel potential grocers to address Detroit consumers. He agrees with UFCW representatives that job creation could be the foundation.

“The state can help immensely,” says Leland, who represents Michigan’s 10th House district in northwest Detroit. “Funds that are earmarked for job creation should go to grocery markets. Federal dollars could help in the form of employee-training funding.”

The Michigan Senate recently passed legislation, sponsored by Mark Jansen, 28th district, which would provide a 10-year tax abatement for grocery stores opening in an underserved area.

But Rev. Turman and the Supermarket Task Force are hoping to solve the problem without having to entice suburban-based supermarket chains that have long abandoned the city.

Turman says that members of inner-city neighborhoods not only want better food choices, but they have been willing to actively participate in projects that promote it.

A recent east-coast trip confirmed to members of the M.O.S.E.S. and the legislature that the community-based formula they seek to employ does have a successful precedent. Several Phillidelphia-area markets, run by grocer Jeffery Brown, have managed to vitalize economically depressed neighborhoods by offering fresh, healthy foods. The Brown’s Superstores have also managed to outsell the competition in the process.

“One of the things that impressed us in Philly was the willingness of the community to contribute and help make it a success,” Turman says.

Funding for the Supermarket Task Force’s first outlet is currently being sought — a commitment from eastside Sav-A-Lot owner Charles Walker has been made. The coalition is also hoping for assistance from the Detroit Economic Development Corporation.

According to UFCW Local 876 Community Development Director, Brad Wilson, community organizing and education is also high on the agenda.

“We want to make sure that we’re bringing as many into the coalition as possible,” Wilson told the Michigan Citizen. “If we can educate state reps and the public, than they’ll be in a better position to say, here’s what the budget looks like and here’s what we can do.”

The union, while swelling its ranks, would help address issues like job security and living wages with increased numbers of local markets, according to Wilson.

Wilson adheres to the sentiment that a new movement to secure food rights in Detroit must ultimately start from within — local input is at the core of solving the “food desert” issue.

“If your strength is in the community, you’re going to have a strong business,” Wilson said.

Chicago-based researcher Mari Gallagher has produced several reports describing the political and social damage resulting from “food deserts” in Chicago and Detroit. Her reports have evolved into some of the most detailed documentation ever done on the effects of access to healthy food options in city neighborhoods.

From a 2007 report entitled, Examining theIimpact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Detroit, Gallagher writes, “Roughly 550,000 Detroit residents ... live in areas that are far out of balance in terms of day-to-day food availability.”

Gallagher told the Michigan Citizen that 92 percent of the “food stores” in Detroit, as defined by the USDA, are actually liquor stores, gas stations or some form of fast food outlet.

She added that neutral and unbiased data of the kind in her numerous reports can aid in finding policy-based solutions.

“We believe that the higher costs will be borne out by higher productivity and addressing food-related disease,” says Gallagher. “If you have limited resources, concentrate them in the highest impact locations.”

 

Grassroots grocery aims to fill a niche in Detroit

By Greta Guest
Free Press Business Writer
June 30, 2009

Two Detroit grocery stores that opened with much fanfare last year are closed now, but there is hope for one in the works.

Zaccaro's Market in Midtown lasted 10 months, shutting down in the spring. Downtown Foodland in Lafayette Park lasted five months, closing a few weeks ago.

So what are the chances that a community coalition can operate a grocery store in the former Farmer Jack on Jefferson?

Brad Wilson, a spokesman for the coalition working to open the store, said he thinks his group can succeed where chains and smaller, specialty grocers such as Zaccaro's and Downtown Foodland failed.

"We see ourselves as being different," Wilson said. "The niche we will fill is for people looking to do their weekly shopping. That's one of the things we see missing in Detroit -- a full-line grocery store."

Detroit has a host of successful independent grocery stores, but some neighborhoods are underserved. Wilson said that a survey taken at a community meeting about the store in May found that some people were driving more than 30 miles to do their grocery shopping.

Bringing fresh food to urban areas is getting more attention, said Bob Gorland, vice president of Matthew P. Casey & Associates in Harrisburg, Pa. The key to making it work is strong store management, he said. Gorland worked for A&P in Detroit and said that it can cost a lot more to operate an urban grocery than a similar store in the suburbs because of increased security, insurance rates and other costs.

"A 45,000-square-foot store in the suburbs with a breakeven of $300,000 in sales a week will often need $400,000 in sales to break even in the urban setting, due to these other cost issues," Gorland said.

Other challenges in the urban store, he said, include retaining good employees. "There is often a high turnover," Gorland said. "While there is often very limited competition, and that is the biggest plus, the negative is you have to have the right management mentality, the right employees and attitude."

The Detroit store chosen as the pilot site has been vacant since 2007, when Farmer Jack ceased operations in Michigan.

The Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength, or MOSES, Supermarket Taskforce is a coalition of community groups, churches, unions and residents planning to open the store to strengthen the community. It said that hiring is still months away.

Once the group completes its business plan, it will begin fund-raising in a few weeks to fund the store's opening, Wilson said.

Cindy Warner, owner of Zaccaro's, said she would advise the coalition to set up the store as a nonprofit and use it to train people in nutrition, food preparation and grocery operations. "That could help keep their labor costs down," she said. Another idea is to join a co-op to gain purchasing power, she said. Warner said she wishes them luck. "The only failure is in not trying," she said.

Coalition Plans Two Food Stores in Detroit
Community-Operated Sites Would Offer More Nutritional Groceries.

The Detroit News
Jaclyn Trop
March 7, 2009

DETROIT -- A Detroit neighborhood coalition seeking to bring healthy food to the city is eyeing two sites -- one on the east side and one on the West -- for the community-run grocery store it envisions.

The M.O.S.E.S. Supermarket Task Force, a partnership among neighborhood groups, churches and a union, among others, is designed to give residents greater access to healthy food through community-owned and run grocery stores.

Detroit, long underserved in some areas by grocers carrying affordable and nutritional food, was declared a "food desert" by a LaSalle Bank-commissioned report. The possible future store locations, chosen by vote at a community meeting Thursday, are 11250 E. Jefferson, a former Farmer Jack grocery location, and 2441 Puritan, which was last used as a Family Dollar store.

The task force is expected to choose a site within the next couple of months and then commission a market study and business plan, which could cost as much as $30,000, according to Brad Wilson, community development director for the group. Wilson also serves as community development director for one of the task force's coalition members, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 876.

Other groups involved include United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, the Rosa Parks Institute and several church parishes. 

"The day the lights are turned on, people in the neighborhood and around the city can say, 'That's our store.' Funding will come from foundations, banks and "folks in the neighborhood," Wilson said.

The coalition, whose initials stand for Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength, also hopes to receive money from the city and has been in discussions with Governor Jennifer Granholm's office, the mayor's office, City Council members, and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.

If the store is successful, the task force plans to use the profits to open several others throughout the city.

But a community-run grocery store is likely to face the same challenges that have dissuaded other supermarket retailers from setting up shop in Detroit, such as low population density, lack of sufficient space, and uneven cash flow due to the monthly food stamp cycle.

"Supermarkets are still businesses," said Olga Savic Stella, vice president of business development for the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., which is currently trying to attract large-scale grocery retailers to the city through a program it calls the Detroit Fresh Food Access Initiative.

"Land assembly can be a real barrier," said Stella, who serves as the program's co-chair. "National retail chains have a hard time adapting their format to an urban market."

A community-run grocery store would require 3.7 acres and a footprint of between 25,000 and 40,000 square feet, according to Wilson.  The footprint of the former Farmer Jack is more than 62,000 square feet and would need to be subdivided if chosen as the site. The lease is $512,000 per year.

The Family Dollar location is about 15,000 square feet and would not be able to accommodate a full-service store with a deli, bakery and meat counter, Wilson said. The lease at that site is $100,000 per year.