Rant: Downtown Grocery Stores

            There has been a lot of talk about the Zellers grocery store at The Bay closing its doors. People are upset that yet another major grocery store is leaving. The picture that is painted is bleak:  Stefano Grande, executive director of Downtown BIZ, said that the IGA on Donald is the only full line grocery store downtown (Free Press, October 2012).  The Uniter (Oct 31^st,2012) said that downtown will become a food desert. The Sun (on March 16^th 2013) mentions that the Food Fare on Arlington is filing for bankruptcy, and the Extra Foods on Notre Dame closed not so long ago.  Zellers is gone and I will not deny that the loss of options is a tragedy, and I won’t even pretend that three grocers closing in and around the downtown is a drop in a full bucket. But I would like to point out that the reaction is a bit over dramatic.

I think it is a myth that there is only 1 full line grocery store in the downtown. By my count there are four major sources of grocery in the downtown. The IGA on Donald is the obvious first one. It serves the people who live in the most populous area of downtown – the area between Broadway and the Assiniboine River. The second is probably not a place you have gone to before: Sun Wah Supermarket, which has an impressive collection of products. It is within easy walking distance from anywhere in the northern area of the exchange district.  The forks market has a collection of smaller shops which, almost definitely, comprise a full service grocery store when considered together. By this same strain of logic the combination of Dong Thai and Dino’s on Notre Dame together are essentially a full service grocery store for the central park area.

A second thing to consider is that people are not limited to only shopping in the downtown, except if they are a part of the most disadvantaged populations. If you look at a map of grocery stores downtown (just do a Google search of “Winnipeg downtown grocery”) you will see that there are a multitude of larger groceries within a short busing distance, or moderate a long walk, from the downtown. There are two Safeways: one on Ellice and one in Osborne, Neechi Foods in the north. In the east there is a Safeway on Marion and an Extra Foods on Goulet. Pal’s supermarket on Broadway is also nearly full service. That is 6 major grocery outlets within a short distance of downtown.

There are also medium sized grocery outlets, places like Edmonton Convenience Store, Giant Tiger, and speciality food places like Mondragon and Sunrise Health Foods. Ethnic groceries like Abyssinian Commercial Trade and the Portuguese Fish & Food Market. These places fill small portions of the gap created from a lack of a major retail outlet to out-compete them.

However, grocery options don’t stop when physical buildings stop. There are other places to get food. The most publicised, and possibly the best option, is the Good Food Box. This program is put on by the Winnipeg FoodShare Co-op and it which gives you phenomenal prices on high quality fresh produce all year long. What about Winnipeg Grocery.com? they deliver to places through out the city (for an $11 delivery charge) and they have quite a reasonable selection of items. There are also buying clubs. These are not as widely publicized and you tend to have to know a person who knows a person to get in. That may not be convenient, but it is an option. This category also includes the summertime CSAs who deliver fresh produce to farmers markets and pickup locations across the city.

People are always talking about increasing the vibrancy of downtown. I am not an expert in urban planning, I'm not a retail geographer, but I have observed in other cities that the type of vibrant commercial districts which CentreVenture etc  are trying to create are not dominated by large retail outlets. Do we need one downtown?

Here is the part where I backpeddle a bit: Food deserts exist. They are serious issues and they have very negative health implications for disadvantaged populations.  Here is a report on food deserts by the PWHCE which talks about food deserts in Saskatoon and Winnipeg. Reading it will show you that there is a problem. Zellers probably presented some of an impoverished population with an important source of healthy food which is now lacking. Elderly people may not be capable of travelling the extra kilometre to the Safeway on River and Osborne (and it is quite expensive to shop there) or to Pal’s in West Broadway. Will a Superstore, a Costco, or a Sobeys save the day? I’m not certain they will. They might just put a lot of small shops out of business.

So what would I recommend? I don’t really know. I have always put food at the top of my priority list, I am perfectly mobile, and I don’t know what it is like not to earn enough money to feed oneself.  But, this is my suggestion: Set up a program that delivers food to people who are not mobile enough to do it themselves. Since that is almost as unlikely as a zombie apocalypse, why not do it yourself? If there is an elderly person or someone in your apartment building who cannot get to a grocery store themselves, offer to do it for them. They are the ones who need the support and who are affected by this the most. You are going to the grocery store anyway.

 Everyone else will probably just jump in their cars and drive to a place where food is available, or they will keep frequenting smaller local shops who supply them with enough options to be satisfied.

Until next time,