DEVELOPMENT REPORT NO 20: Oakland Food Retail Impact Study
By Hannah Laurison and Nella Young of Public Health Law & Policy in collaboration with Food First
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 | DR 20 Oakland Food Retail Impact Study feb 2009.pdf | 757.45 KB |
After decades of underinvestment, West Oakland finally has two potential food retailers considering locations in the neighborhood. Fresh & Easy, a chain store owned by British-based Tesco (the world’s third-largest food retailer), and People’s Grocery, the for-profit arm of an Oakland nonprofit organization, have both indicated their intent to locate in this long-underserved area.
How would the arrival of either a small, locally-owned store or a small-format store operated by a mainstream grocery retailer affect the neighborhood? Store size, ownership structure, the range of products and services offered, pricing structure, operating style, and store design all make up a store’s “format,” and can shape a store’s influence on the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of neighborhood food systems.
In the Oakland Food Retail Impact Study, Public Health Law & Policy (PHLP) and Food First investigate the deep, long-term potential impacts these different food retail formats could have on the well-being of Oakland’s residents, the local economy, and the food system. This study describes the current status of Oakland’s initiatives to support food retail and sustainable economic development, and assesses the potential influence of each grocery store format on Oakland’s community, economy, and environment.
The study answers the following questions:
1. What food retail format offers the greatest selection of healthy, affordable, fresh, and culturally-appropriate food?
2. What food retail format makes the greatest contribution to local wealth?
3. What business practices contribute to community well-being?
4. Which labor practices create good jobs for neighborhood residents and throughout the supply chain?
5. How can grocers contribute to a healthy, clean environment?
The study offers a “Sustainable Food Retail Framework” for analyzing the sustainability of Fresh & Easy and People’s Grocery in detail. This framework is focused on community values. The five values measured by the framework are good food, local wealth, strong communities, good jobs, and healthy environment. This method of comparison supports a more holistic approach to thinking about food retail, and more easily allows for customization by different users based on local value priorities.
Within each of the five categories, the framework defines ways retailers can fulfill these values. This framework can be applied to other businesses to establish priorities for negotiation, decision making, and policy, and provides food policy advocates a way to characterize the food retail format’s impact on the whole community. It provides them a stronger platform from which to build the case for supporting food retail that actively contributes to equitable, sustainable neighborhood development.
The Sustainable Food Retail Framework has many implications for food retailers seeking to set up shop in Oakland’s neighborhoods. As Oakland’s elected officials and Agency staff make their decisions about what formats to support, they will need to consider multiple metrics that define success within Oakland’s diverse neighborhoods. The arrival of Tesco’s Fresh & Easy to the East Bay is a window of opportunity for a spirited public debate – an opportunity to consider how the city will respond to this chain retailer and the role policymakers will play in developing citywide priorities for food retail going forward. Local officials and staff will decide how to allocate public resources and which retailers should benefit from public incentives. Those decisions will, in turn, affect the extent to which different community values and priorities around jobs and local wealth, community cohesion, safety, public health and the environment may be realized.
