Rural areas continue to lose grocery stores, gain dollar stores

[Sherman A1]

Rural residents have fewer options to buy food and have to rely more on dollar stores and long drives for groceries, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA released data last week that shows in rural areas across the country, there was a six-year period ending in 2015 that saw a 20% decrease in grocery, specialty food and convenience stores.

There was modest growth in dollar stores and superstores like Walmart over that same time period.

"The number of grocery stores has been declining in these (rural) counties, particularly after the Great Recession. These trends suggest that access to grocery stores has been declining over the last 25 years,” the report stated.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/economy-business/2022-01-04/rural-areas-continue-to-lose-grocery-stores-gain-dollar-stores?

[Johnny2X2X]

2. It's bad news for their health

Some inner cities are food deserts too, with liquor stores, dollar stores, and pharmacies being the lone places to buy food in a neighborhood. Fresh produce and a wider variety of items in bulk are what makes good grocery stores. You're not getting healthy options at dollar stores.

Something lost on Republican voters is that the GOP's war on poor people includes much of rural America. The poverty you see in small town USA in many ways is worse than the inner city because there are less services available to help those in need.

[niyad]

3. If one does not have access to grocery stores, proper nutrition is very difficult

to achieve or maintain. Food deserts and food insecurity are serious, and basically overlooked, issues. As is obesity resulting from lack of access to proper nutrition.

[madville]

8. Proper nutrition is hard for many that have access to full grocery stores

People buy a lot of junk/processed food even at fully stocked grocery stores, but I guess at least they have to option to buy crap over real food at least.

[Wounded Bear]

4. Welcome to what people in inner cities have been facing for decades...

I feel for the good people out there, but this won't be fixed by capitalism. Capitalism caused this. It will require government intervention to "fix" it. Hell, in my "suburban" part of the county there are half the number of grocery stores or less operating now than there were 20 years ago.

Walmart carefully calculates how close together they build their superstores, and a quick hint: They don't base their numbers on customer convenience, or at least that's not the most important issue.

[madville]

5. Most of the mom and pop grocers are gone

The small towns near where I grew up all had mom and pop family run grocery stores up until the 90's. The two owner operated ones I can think of that have survived are more meat market/butcher shop focused with modest grocery and produce sections. I always visit them when I am in those areas and pick up steaks, fresh made sausages and pork chops at least.

All these small towns have a Dollar General or Family Dollar now though. Dollar General has improved their offerings in recent years, they at least have some meats now like ground beef, sauasage, frozen chicken breasts/thighs/drumsticks, shrimp, eggs, milk, cheeses, and a variety of frozen vegetables. They also have a decent selection of canned and dried goods.

I do frequent the Dollar General four miles from my house because it's the closest store, I go to Walmart (12 miles) or Publix (10 miles) a couple of times per month to get my usual produce staples (tomatoes, onions, celery, carrots, bell peppers, potatoes, oranges, grapefruits, etc).

Instacart will deliver out to my house from Publix, I do that occasionally when I don't have any other reason to go to the city.

[niyad]

15. Dollar General is extremely anti-union. And I will never forgive them for attempting

to undermine or destroy Indigenous sovereignty.

[madville]

17. I've got DG, Publix, and Walmart within 25 miles

It’s kind of a pick your poison scenario lol.

[niyad]

18. You have my deepest sympathies. Fortunately, we have some excellent ethnic

markets here, in addition to all the usual suspects. And for that I am grateful, because if the local UFCW7 voted to strike last night (Denver voted strike day before yesterday), I will not be crossing the picket lines.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

6. Plenty of pawn shops and gun stores, though.

I was shocked when we arrived here in rural Eastern TN to see how many dollar stores, pawn shops and gun stores there were. I had always associated an abundance of dollar stores and pawn shops with run down areas of larger cities. It was a real wake up call and, from what I learned from the neighbors, a direct result of the long struggle with opiates in this area.

I had to go all the way into the largest city in our county, (pop. 8000,) and on the way noticed the IGA grocery store had closed. I didn't expect that. I use Food City because it's closer. We plan to move closer to Knoxville sometime in the next 12 months. There's just too much hassle living in the sticks when the only jobs available are closer to the big city and my wife just got one there.

[womanofthehills]

7. When our rural grocery store closed - our town took up a go fund me

After a year with no grocery and the closest being 90 miles round trip, our town funded a woman who agreed to take the project on. We raised close to $100,000 and she got loans for the rest. Store is doing well and even has a sandwich area. We are in ranching country - so she always has lots of meat and someone working the meat counter. Now, she has also bought part of a local small meat processing plant just outside of town.

The following article is a yr old - but it’s happening here big time - residents buying beef directly from ranchers. I now can buy grass fed/grass finished hamburger at my local rural grocery from cows grazing less than 10 miles from grocery store or I can just buy it direct from a rancher who will bring it to our book club. The grocery store owner also has organic gardens and she and other locals make sure we have good vegetables too. It can be done without the government if people pull together.

https://www.kunm.org/public-health-new-mexico/2020-05-22/as-covid-cripples-major-beef-processors-n-m-ranchers-connect-directly-with-consumers

[madville]

9. That's really cool, many I know buy a 1/2 or whole cattle

and have them processed at the small processors in the area. Several people I know also raise a pig or two and then have it butchered at the local processor.

I deer hunt more these days since I work and travel less, about 75% of my annual meat consumption now is venison. I'll process them myself sometimes but there is a small meat market about 15 miles away that will process and package the whole deer for $65, I have them add 20% beef fat to the ground burger so that adds $10 to make it $75 though.

[Act_of_Reparation]

10. So they'll be blaming Democrats for this, I assume.

[TheRealNorth]

13. I would presume so...

Must have been some Democrat conspiracy with the ghost of Hugo Chavez.

[Midnight Writer]

11. This trend also takes money out of the community.

The profit from the big chain stores does not stay in the community as it did with the locally owned and operated groceries.

Also, the jobs pay less. Folks used to make a comfortable living clerking in local stores. Those wages went on to fuel the local economies as the workers bought homes, goods, and paid local taxes.

It is not just grocery stores. Local owned hardware stores, bakeries, "five and dimes", drug stores, general stores, department stores, clothing stores, shoe stores, restaurants, are all gone.

The wealthy are sucking all the income out of small towns and leaving behind rotting economies.

Eventually even the big box stores will be gone, replaced by online shopping. The only jobs we will likely have left are delivery workers.

[jcgoldie]

12. Just what we need

…more fritos and twinkies.

[NickB79]

16. Why do we need grocery stores, when we can buy frozen pizzas and burritos?

I'm only being partially facetious. My semi-rural exurban small town lost it's only grocery store three years ago. In its place are two gas stations (Kwik Trip and Holiday) and a Dollar Tree. All have plenty of cheap, heavily processed, canned and frozen foods, along with a rare smattering of semi-healthy items.

I really enjoy cooking healthy meals for my family, and if hard-pressed I MIGHT be able to make it work utilizing these three places, for a short period of time, if I really tried hard. But the nearest Aldi is 15 miles down the road, and I have a huge vegetable garden, a big pantry, a big fridge and separate standup freezer, so why bother?

But frankly, in a nation where 2/3 of all adults are overweight or obese, it's pretty obvious that most of the people in my town are just fine living off hot dogs, chips and donuts on a daily basis. Because let's face it: if we were THAT interested in eating fresh produce and healthy meals, our grocery store would have been profitable enough to stay open, or profitable enough to attract another Aldi here.

[dumbcat]

19. Bingo!

And in all the moaning about full service grocery stores with fresh produce and meats and larger quantities of staples leaving both rural areas and inner cities, there is very little mention of WHY. Maybe there just wasn't enough demand in those smaller places to be able to keep a business going on those items with their very small profit margins. The people in those areas liked their conviemient junk food.

Also, in a fair sized town (about 150K pop.) not too far from me there was a full service regional grocery store in the older "downtown" area of the city. As the area got more and more run down, with homeless living on the street and filthy conditions, businesses started to move out. The grocery store complained to the police and city council about all the homeless shoplifting and breaking into the store at night with nothing ever done about it. The grocery store was losing money. They closed the store and opened up a new supercenter grocery on the other side of town in the newly developing area. Much nicer place, but several miles away from the older, mostly minority "inner city". You should have heard the screams of RACIST! FOOD DESERT! UNFAIR. How could they do this????? Well, maybe if the store was making some money it would have stayed. But ........

Same thing in rural areas. If people won't pay the price to make a store at least break even, they'll go away. They have NO incentive to operate at a loss.

[ThoughtCriminal]

20. Sometimes we have a "Farmers' Market"

But it is only seasonal.

Very few choices for fresh produce, but a huge selection of places to buy ammo and MREs.

[PTWB]

21. If there isn't a sustainable market for grocery stores, they'll be replaced.

If rural folks want to gorge themselves on frozen pizzas and burritos from the dollar store, who are we to deny them an early grave? Look at the great divide in vaccination percentages between rural and urban areas. These are the same folks who are trying to kill the rest of us with their anti-vaccination propaganda.