New York City is moving closer to launching its efforts to counter food inflation by opening five city-run grocery stores. Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced in May 2026 that the first store would open in the Hunts Point neighborhood in the South Bronx in 2027, with another to follow in East Harlem.
Five stores, one in each borough, are unlikely to substantially change food prices in a city with nearly 1,000 supermarkets and more than 8 million residents. But each could make a significant difference to local shoppers’ grocery bills by selling essential products at below-market prices.
Although only five stores are expected to open in low-income neighborhoods, the initiative has drawn fierce opposition from independent grocers, supermarket trade associations and a coalition representing immigrant-owned food businesses.
What explains this decline?
As a food policy expert, I believe this opposition is about more than the immediate economic impact of five stores. This is the precedent they could set. Mamdani’s initiative challenges a long-held expectation that the government should leave the provision of consumer goods to private companies, even as it encourages companies to invest in certain locations, regulates their activities and helps low-income shoppers through various food assistance programs.
The reality is more complicated. For at least a century, New York’s food economy has not operated independently of government. In fact, public policy and investment have long determined where supermarkets open, which businesses can operate profitably, and how residents obtain food.
It’s just that they did it in a way that consumers often don’t see.
This is why the five grocery stores have, in my opinion, a broader meaning. They propose a different model of public investment that makes government much more visible in delivering an essential service – and more accountable for its results. New Yorkers will have the opportunity to judge this contribution directly.
If the stores succeed, they could change not only what people expect to pay for groceries, but also what they expect from their municipal government.
How the plan will work
New York City has committed $70 million to develop these stores, which will be open to everyone.
Although they will be run by private operators, the city will provide free spaces, prioritize public sites and ensure that prices of essential foods are 30% lower than usual retail prices.
In this regard, stores offer a “public option” – a government-provided good or service that exists alongside private alternatives, such as public schools and municipal hospitals.
Municipal grocery stores would offer New Yorkers a similar choice alongside private retailers. But as a public option, they would create a visible alternative against which shoppers could judge private stores, setting a benchmark for food prices and quality of service. They would also demonstrate how public investment can be used to make an essential good more affordable.
During his announcement in May, Mamdani described the proposed store in the Bronx and surrounding areas as “physical proof of our belief that government can be a force for good.”
A new form of intervention
Government-backed food retailing has a long history in New York, despite opposition from existing businesses.
In 1934, the administration of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia began selling discounted milk to low-income families, but the move sparked complaints from grocers of unfair competition. Independent merchants also protested the city’s efforts to subsidize a new Pathmark supermarket in East Harlem in the 1990s, warning that it would bankrupt local grocers.
A more recent example is the food retail expansion program to support city health, known as FRESH. Since 2009, it has offered supermarket developers and operators long-term tax breaks and zoning incentives to build or expand dozens of stores in underserved neighborhoods.
These incentives have helped increase food retail space, but shoppers don’t see the public support behind them.
FRESH is just one example of an approach to supermarket financing that gained momentum in the 1990s, when governments sought to solve social problems by encouraging private investment. Food insecurity was blamed on the scarcity of neighborhood supermarkets, not on the fact that prices were beyond the reach of local shoppers.
Subsidizing new stores promised better nutrition and economic development without confronting poverty or inequality, and FRESH reflects this approach. Participating supermarkets must dedicate space to perishable foods, but they are not required to offer affordable prices. This may be one reason why researchers have found that adding supermarkets to low-income neighborhoods does not substantially improve residents’ diets.
This hidden role of government is not limited to grocery stores. Much of what the government does for Americans is done indirectly, through tax credits, grants, and private institutions. Because the public contribution is obscured, people often give credit to private markets for the benefits provided by public policies, from student loans to health care.
This invisibility is a consequence of political design and influences how citizens perceive government, a phenomenon that political scientist Suzanne Mettler has described as “the submerged state.”
Bringing the State to light
Municipal grocery stores deviate from the traditional model in two important ways.
First, they make affordability an explicit condition of public investment rather than the result of increased retail competition. Second, they make the government’s contribution visible. For example, stores will share a distinct brand so shoppers know who is responsible for affordable food.
If stores offer reliable savings, shoppers might begin to view affordable food as something the government can help provide, not an outcome entirely determined by private markets. When public benefits are obscured, people are more likely to underestimate the government’s contribution to their lives. Visible programs, such as a physical store in the neighborhood, make it easier to notice and evaluate this contribution.
Visibility also creates accountability. A customer of a private supermarket that has been given a tax break to expand is not likely to link the store’s prices or food quality to government policy. In a municipal grocery store, with a clear brand image, the link is unmistakable.
Certainly, the critics’ concerns deserve careful attention. Many independent grocery stores are owned by immigrant entrepreneurs who operate on low margins. Groups representing independent bodegas and supermarkets warn that a state-subsidized competitor could lure away their customers. Some might lose business.
Yet East Harlem’s Pathmark demonstrates that new supermarkets and small retailers can coexist. Between 2000 and 2015, the number of small grocery stores and bodegas in the neighborhood increased from 100 to 126, while supermarkets increased from 10 to 18. That said, these numbers do not establish the effects of Pathmark on individual businesses.
The impact of municipal stores on nearby retailers remains an open question. But New York City’s task is to ensure that private operators provide excellent service and real savings, and that their commercial interests do not undermine the public mission. It will also be necessary to ensure good working conditions and monitor the effects on neighboring businesses.
Ultimately, public ownership does not guarantee success. But that makes it impossible to overlook government responsibility for the outcome.
Nevin Cohen, director of the Department of Health Policy and Management, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Public Policy
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Gn bussni
