Maloney on alternative food programs and grocery store economics
Maloney asks about alternatives like FRESH, Groceries to Go, and food pantries, and whether the $30M could go further through other avenues. Peck says all programs are complementary, with NYC groceries offering city-controlled subsidies.
I want to also talk about some of the alternative programs to address the issue of food security.
So there's Fresh, which provides tax and zoning incentives for private supermarkets.
Groceries to Go, which gives a 50% discount for fresh produce.
Of course, the traditional food pantry.
And if we looked at, as a city government, at these alternative options and also how far $30 million would go through these other...
avenues.
Yes, so these are all complementary programs.
They do serve different purposes and you know I can go through the fresh program if you if you want but because that's that's run by IDEA
but the idea of the NYC grocery stores is that it's city controlled and so that the subsidy that we're providing through the tenant fit out no rent and no property tax by the third party operator is going to go
directly because we control it we're sure that it's going to go directly to the food affordability of the core basket that's you know and also we want to create
these like pleasant dignified places to shop and good paying jobs for the workers there so um all that combined uh
It's one sort of effort to create food affordability and accessibility throughout the city.
That's not like the only solution.
All the other ones that you have mentioned are also, we're all working together to sort of meet those goals, having different priorities or levers.