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Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

theguardian.com

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Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#51

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mc32 wrote: post #43
samayylmao wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't afford transportation you're limited to what you can walk to. In the area I live you cannot bring more than one bag with you on public transportation and it takes almost an hour to get across town on the bus. It would be cheaper to buy marked up food from a gas station or drugstore than pay for a taxi ride or waste half a day riding the bus. Edit: essentially, a lot of the time it is expensive to be poor…

Being poor doesn’t mean you can’t get a bus ticket. All it means is you are deliberate in your shopping and planning. You plan your trip to take advantage of transfer tickets and such. Sometimes you walk a mile or two or you bike or you bum a ride from someone. Being poor doesn’t mean you can’t plan and are helpless. Sure it’s not ideal and I prefer being able to shop ad hoc at my leisure, no doubt. But when I had to…

> Being poor doesn’t mean you can’t plan

Chronic stress (such as from financial stress and working multiple jobs) actually does severely impact your executive function and decision-making ability. It's hard to make dispassionate decisions when you're exhausted and scared. There's been studies about it.

Obviously it's possible to overcome that, and some people are better at it than others. But the burden is real. When you're coming off a double shift, it's really hard to make the decision to spend an extra 45 minutes walking round-trip, or two hours hopping on and off buses, when you could just hit the Walgreen's near your apartment and get home to your family.

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#52

Post by stronglikedan »

francisofascii wrote: post #24

CVS is everywhere. Whole Foods and Trader Joes's are only in a few cities and usually there is only one. Guessing about 10 times the number of locations. https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/list/state https://www.cvs.com/store-locator/cvs-pharmacy-locations

Guessing about 10 times the number of locations.

More like 20x.

FTFA: last year CVS and Walgreens each had close to 10,000 stores in the US, while Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods each had fewer than 500 locations.

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#53

Post by kombucha11 »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #37
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata: I have money and property and plentiful transportation (three vehicles for the two of us). Live miles from town. I drive to one or more grocery stores infrequently to get what I want. Buy quality food and freeze/store it in my large house. Garden provides some more. Waste is composted and feeds the gardens. Meals cost me a buck or two to prepare from my plentiful stock. All because I can afford to. Food is…

You're also handsome, charming, and incredibly humble.

Whether or not he meant to his comment illustrates the problem perfectly: those with the means to do so can eat healthy food and absorb the cost/time/distance inherent in that, those that cannot will suffer and chose whatever they can get. Good healthy food at a sustainable price is hard to come by in the US. There are food deserts everywhere. Good food is treated clearly as a lifestyle luxury. Let them eat cake indeed.

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#54

Post by dev_dull »

colanderman wrote: post #41
ezekg wrote: post #7

I almost always go to CVS when I need to get a few small items in a hurry (I usually use Amazon Fresh for groceries), so I'm not surprised about this at all. Going to CSV is much easier than fighting the crowd at Walmart since there's only a handful of people there at any given time.

Ditto. My wife and I are stereotypically the perfect WF/TJs customers: ecologically-minded hippie-ish DINKs in an upper-middle-class suburb. We live a 3 minute drive from both, and she works a short walk from a Roche Bros (which serves a similar demographic). Yet, despite the poorer selection and higher prices, the majority of groceries that enter our house come from CVS. Why? My wife visits one regularly to pick up…

I didn’t even realize I needed to justify periodically buying food there until I read this thread. As if their success somehow means there’s something nefarious going on or they’re taking advantage of people. There’s a CVS everywhere.

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#55

Post by sonnyblarney »

Convenience. Grocers should take note.

In Canada the corollary is 'Shoppers Drug Mart' and ever since they merged with the national grocer chain, I can get >50% of my groceries i.e. milk, bread, cheese, meat (I mean none of it is super high quality but often good enough) because it's across the street! And there is no lineup.

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#56

Post by zajd »

momokoko wrote: post #29
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where real estate is expensive the only grocery stores that can stay afloat are fat margin chains that cater to upscale customers. The poor people are then forced to shop at CVS or wherever, sure it's more expensive than Walmart or a proper grocery store but it's still cheaper than whole paycheck. WF (or Trader Joes for that matter) simply doesn't sell value priced versions of a lot of items. CVS will sell it at a ri…

This is a massive misconception and nicely illustrates how much people are influenced by branding and merchandising. Whole foods 365 brand is actually cheaper than many grocery store generics. The data is available online if you want to explore this further.

Gallon of milk, whole foods 365 brand: 5.99

Price at kroger/safeway: 1.99

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#57

Post by Shivetya »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9

That's a pity, because doing grocery shopping at CVS is like doing grocery shopping at a gas station / convenience mart: there's a $1-3 markup on damn near everything. And I imagine the people that are forced to shop at a drugstore are probably poor to begin with, so, that hits them even worse.

Well until SNAP[1] is blocked from being spent on snacks and sodas these sites will always be in use. The list of foods that are acceptable encourage these stores to focus on the high profit side of the list which equates to what many would see as pure junk.

Plus in some areas you cannot get a grocery in due to zoning or regulatory agencies which can increase the costs of worker and compliance needs beyond normal. There are many rules regarding handling of produce and raw foods that drug store type sellers never have to meet.

[1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#58

Post by behringer »

sct202 wrote: post #36
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #9

That's a pity, because doing grocery shopping at CVS is like doing grocery shopping at a gas station / convenience mart: there's a $1-3 markup on damn near everything. And I imagine the people that are forced to shop at a drugstore are probably poor to begin with, so, that hits them even worse.

CVS is has a high/low pricing scheme, so most of the items you see aren't being purchased at full price and people really only buy them on sale. You have to play their games with stacking ECB, coupons and sales though, so it's work.

I had to stop buying at CVS because of this, it was driving me crazy. I would pick up some over the counter medication and it'd ring up for an extra 5 or 10 bucks. Just walked out one day and now I get my medications at walmart or my closer neighborhood pharmacy.

Re: Fears grow over 'food swamps' as drugstores outsell major grocers

#59

Post by mc32 »

bluntfang wrote: post #40
p49k wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming this is true: If you visit WF, your entire shopping needs won’t be met by the available 365-branded foods, which means you’ll either have to shop at multiple stores (extremely difficult if you are poor) or buy the remaining products at severely marked up prices, negating any savings the 365-brands products might have offered. In particular, produce, meats and other fresh products are absurdly marked up in WF…

can you give some examples of products you can't find at WF? I only ask because WF is the closest grocery to me and I don't have a problem getting everything I need. Granted, fresh fruit and vegetables don't have the 365 brand, but I'm assuming you don't mean that? I think the 365 brand is more about staples like milk, eggs, juice? Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though, I'm sure I'm biased.

The only things that come to mind are some household items. Grease cleaners, motor oil, actual OTC drugs (cough, aspirin, etc.), actual full size brooms, pest control and few other things.
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