Mayoral Candidate Katie Wilson’s Nuanced Take Re: Municipal Grocery Stores

Seattle Mayoral candidate Katie Wilson posted a thoughtful thread about the idea of a city-run grocery store. Quoting in full below:

I’m sympathetic to the municipal grocery store idea and certainly open to it. But I don’t think we can assume this is an easy solution to high prices or food deserts.

To the extent that high prices represent monopoly power in the food industry (not at the grocery store level but further back in the food chain, so to speak), publicly owned stores aren’t going to get a better deal.

You’d need multiple stores to be able to buy wholesale, and even then wouldn’t achieve other economies of scale enjoyed by large chains like Kroger or Albertson’s. So it’s not going to be easy to offer lower prices.

Margins in the grocery industry are low. In a food desert, a public grocery store will have the same struggles a for-profit store has.

Of course, a public grocery store could operate at a loss. But then we need to be clear-eyed about the fact that we’re choosing to subsidize it—and measure the benefits against other ways we might subsidize food costs for low-income households.

One cool thing a public grocery store could do is subsidize some staple goods (bread, milk… eggs, anyone?) and raise the prices of higher-end items to compensate. A co-op near my hometown does this and it seems to work, but obviously depends on an affluent customer base.

I think a public grocery store will be most successful if it grows out of community organizing and coalition-building within a specific neighborhood. People need to be all-in on making it work, and making it into more than just a grocery store.

In sum, I would love to do this in principle, but wouldn’t want to do it just because it sounds good and then have it turn into a major drain on City time, energy, and resources without real measurable benefits for Seattle residents.

Also, as mayor I do absolutely want to support and partner with community-led food system efforts – like Rainier Beach Action Coalition’s Food Hub and Farm Stand, and their longer term plans for a Food Innovation Center near the Rainier Beach Light Rail Station.

Original thread: Katie Wilson on Bluesky

This is in response to the idea that is now getting popularized by NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, see:
https://newrepublic.com/article/193056/food-egg-prices-public-grocery-stores

Curious to hear what others think. Should Seattle experiment with a municipal grocery store?