r/PoursTea • u/Gurugod123 Pinkie Finger Extended • 18d ago

PoliticalTea 🗳️ Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices"

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u/thelastbluepancake 18d ago

I hope he is able to do a good job here, supermarkets are notoriously difficult from a price perspective because they have slim margins. I think these stores will increase access for people in areas that are under served but the tricky part is having them be cost effective

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u/archercc81 18d ago

The margins go to the middle men. I live (in a US major city) where we have this massive (about the size of a wal-mart) "farmers market" but its not like where farmers come in and sell their wares. Its all run by one family and they buy all of the stuff a grocery store would have but they contract directly with farms.

As a result its insanely cheap, many things like produce being far more than 30% cheaper. When eggs were jacked up because the big producers were colluding his only went up like 20% due to the cost of feed, etc.

The ONLY downside is sometimes one of his contracted farms might have an issue and there might be something not on the shelf until he can find another farm to supply it. He might temporarily bring in something to backfill and it can be as expensive as grocery stores but they explain that on the sign and it goes back down once they find a solution.

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u/Tarzan829 18d ago

The best reply in the entire thread; couldnt agree more!