A New York is always talking about the cost of spending and, more generally, the increase in the cost of living. It is not a growth dictated by the “last months”, difficult for almost the whole world, but it is data that rise for several years. According to the New York State Comptroller, food prices in the metropolitan area rose by 25.2% from 2019. And of course it is a growth that penalizes especially the low classes, because food has always been one of the less compressible voices of the family budget: in short, if one has to tighten the belt, it does not do it on the goods of first necessity. But if you increase the goods of first necessity, it becomes difficult to buy everything else.
If the focus is narrowed to the most recent years, the increase continues but at a more limited pace: between 2025 and 2026 food prices in New York have grown by about 3.4% on an annual basis, with increases spread in all food categories. This means that the problem is no longer a temporary peak, but precisely the price baseline, which becomes every year stably higher. There is then what increases more than the rest: meat and protein products, for example, have recorded increments of almost 9% in a year between New York and Newark. At national level, the price of beef and coffee has grown double in recent years, also for the reduction of farms and import costs.
The consequences of all this, of course, are appreciable above all at the supermarket box: in 2024, 56% of New Yorkers declared that they had reduced food spending due to increased prices. And this can also explain, in part, how did Zohran Mamdani win the elections. It has done so with a program aimed above all to reduce the cost of living in the city, proposing the blocking of rentals for regular apartments, free buses, child care without cost and, above all, its most difficult promise: public supermarkets.
The common thread, in short, was to intervene on the main expenditure items of New York families – home, transport, food – with a greater presence of the institutions. During the campaign, the grocery store project was defined as a “pilot program”: five stores, one per borough, with an estimated initial cost around $60 million. The idea was to build a limited network, assess its results and possibly expand it. A public supermarket, then, does not have to pay rent because the property is of the municipality, and the same applies to real estate taxes. There is no interest in making profit, and therefore prices can remain calmed. At the same time it is a competition lever: even the large distribution and retailers should adapt to the prices of the municipal supermarket.
But how is this project going, a few months after the settlement? Recently the Mamdani administration relaunched the proposal and announced the construction of the first public supermarket, which will rise in La Marqueta, in East Harlem, but although it is the first announced it will not be the first to open: according to the plan, the first operating point should arrive by the end of 2027 in an existing building, while the symbolic site of Harlem – about 9,000 square meters – will be completed only in 2029, at the end of the mandate.
This is an intervention of approximately $70 million of public funds for the entire network of five supermarkets, of which only $30 million for the East Harlem store. It remains the choice created in the election campaign to use land owned by the municipality, so as to eliminate rentals and real estate taxes to lower consumer prices. The city will maintain property and strategic control of supermarkets, but the daily management will be entrusted to private operators selected through the contract, with the obligation to transfer the economic advantages – zero rentals and subsidies – on the final prices.
But why East Harlem as a symbol? East Harlem was chosen because the average income is less than half of the average in Manhattan, and because access to fresh and affordable food remains limited. In New York – especially in low-income neighborhoods like East Harlem, South Bronx or parts of Brooklyn – the problem is not only the overall price increase. Fresh products, such as fruit, vegetables and unprocessed meat, have higher costs, even for logistical reasons: they are perishable, require cold chains, frequent distribution and larger sales spaces. On the contrary, ultra-processed food – packaged snacks, sugary drinks, fast food – has much lower production and distribution costs, higher margins and a long shelf life, making it more convenient for both retailers and consumers.
This imbalance is reflected directly in prices. In many neighborhoods of New York, buying a meal from a fast food chain can cost less than buying ingredients to cook an equivalent meal at home. Studies on urban food consumption in the United States show that calories from ultra-processed food averagely cost less than half compared to fresh food. The result, clearly, is that at the same budget families tend to orientate towards cheaper products even if less healthy and nutritive.
The problem is amplified by the geographical distribution of shops. In the so-called “food deserts” – areas with low supermarkets and high concentration of small shops – it is easier to find bodegas or convenience store that sell packaged products, sugar drinks and ready foods, while it is more difficult to access fresh fruits and vegetables at competitive prices. Even when available, these products can have higher costs and lower quality than supermarkets located in richer neighborhoods.
However, the idea of public supermarkets does not arise with Mamdani and, above all, does not start from scratch: in the United States there already exist experiments – some successful, other failed. The most mentioned case in recent months is that of Atlanta, where in 2025 was opened Azalea Fresh Market, a supermarket supported by the municipality in an area left without shops for over twenty years. There the municipality has contributed with public incentives and subsidies – about 8 million dollars between funds, loans and incentives, but the management is entrusted to a private operator: the goal is to reach self-sufficiency in a few years.
The first data says that the store records between 600 and 700 customers a day, with an average receipt around 13 dollars. An average receipt so low indicates that the supermarket is mainly used for small and frequent purchases, but has not completely replaced the large distribution. However, the data is positive and the experiment plans to achieve self-sufficiency in about 2-3 years.
But Atlanta is a relatively favorable case, because it intervenes in a non-commercial area. Elsewhere, the results have been much more uncertain: in Chicago, for example, the hypothesis of municipal supermarkets has been studied for a long time but has not yet found a realization, even for doubts about economic sustainability and impact regarding alternatives, such as incentives to private individuals or local markets. Feasibility studies have defined the model “implementable”, but only under very precise conditions of management and continuous public support.
Looking at the cases already operating, recurrent structural limits emerge. In Illinois, public programs to open supermarkets in “food deserts” had discontinuous results: several outlets closed within a few years, unable to reach a sufficient volume of sales to cover costs. The main reason is economic and concerns the very nature of the sector: the large food distribution is an extremely low margin business and high operational complexity, where profitability depends on high volumes, logistics efficiency and strict cost control.
Several studies on “food deserts” show that opening a supermarket is not enough, on its own, to change food habits: even when access improves, the impact on diet is often limited, because consumption choices depend on income, time available, food culture and relative prices. Despite these criticisms, the model continues to be considered by one side of the experts as a response to a market failure. In the United States, more than 53 million people live in areas with limited access to supermarkets, and the tendency to concentration of large distribution further reduced the presence of shops in less profitable areas.
Bringing forward the plan of municipal supermarkets could also be a risky choice from the financial point of view: the city of New York is facing an estimated budget deficit in over 5 billion dollars, and some measures promised in the country – as assistance programs for rent or reduction of school classes – have already been slowed down or scaled. The key step now remains the definition of prices and baskets of products, as well as the start of the selection procedure of operators.
L’articolo New York public supermarkets, explained well proviene da IlNewyorkese.
