“You’re seeing a lot of state lawmakers and enforcers realizing, hey, monopoly is a huge issue, and this is the way to tackle affordability. It’s the way to rebuild the local economies of our communities,” explained Stacy Mitchell on the Grocery Nerds podcast. Drawing a straight line between monopoly power and grocery affordability, she explains the far-reaching consequences of the policy decisions that led us to this point. The wide-ranging conversation is a must-listen for anyone who cares about food access and affordability; listen below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Stacy Mitchell“We have a long history in this country of breaking up companies. And that doesn’t mean destroying them. It means restructuring them into smaller units that are not able to dominate the market in the same way […] And that’s what we very much need in the retail space.”
The decision to stop enforcing a single law decimated the independent grocery market and led to the dominance of big chains.
How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert.
Rhode Island passes landmark law to end grocery store real estate restrictions.
To demonstrate how corporate concentration has reshaped food access in the U.S., ILSR's interactive map shows food deserts alongside the location of grocery stores.