There’s a new community-based option in grocery shopping cropping up in some of Canada’s lower-income urban neighbourhoods. It’s described as less an innovation than a self-defence measure against relentlessly high food prices.
The rising phenomenon of alternative grocery stores is less a model than a new coverall approach to ensuring everyone in the community can get decent food. And the concept offers enough flexibility that it can be configured to fit the needs of every community.
Different strokes…
One unifying characteristic of these new food outlets is that they are run by community groups, not for-profit corporations. That’s the main factor that lets them offer low prices while maintaining ap-propriate quality levels and variety in their stock. The also rely mainly on volunteer staff, which keeps costs down. In some cases, they enjoy subsidized or rent-free space.
But there’s more…
How, you ask, do they get inexpensive food to sell, in the first place? We’re told, by government and industry experts, that prices will probably remain high over the coming year. One estimate is that, even though food price inflation is slowing and prices for some foods are actually edging down, food costs are expected to increase overall by about another 5 percent in 2025.
One ‘secret’ for obtaining cheap food is trolling the ‘rescued food’ channels. That doesn’t mean al-ternative grocery store are dumpster diving to fill their shelves, It just means they’re making allian-ces where they can with wholesalers and retailers to ‘adopt’ foods that might otherwise be culled – especially from the produce section – while still perfectly wholesome, but beyond their ‘perfect appearance’ thresholds.
Another related channel is the so-called ‘ugly food’ approach (see photo, top of page). A huge am-ount of fresh, flavourful, healthy food never even gets to the supermarket displays because it’s blemished, or isn’t the perfect size, ripeness or shape the major retailers have conditioned custom-ers to expect from them. Harvesting this ‘hidden bounty’ often involves dealing directly with with farmers or wholesalers. But it pays off for everybody involved.
Creative pricing structures
Some alternative grocers are using creative price structures to help ‘spread the wealth’, and ensure no one leaves their stores with empty bags.
‘Pay what you can’ community groceries were a ‘big thing for a fleeting moment a decade pr so ago. But they couldn’t get along on swindling donations and the slim revenues their model iplied. Now, though, more sophisticated organ-izations are formulating more sustainable pricing strucrtures.
Beccah Frasier is the Executive Co-Director of Carrefour Solidaire Community Food Centre, the or-ganization that runs Montreal’s 3 Paniers grocery store. Shoppers are presented with a three-tier price ‘menu’ when they check out.
- The ‘solidarity price’ is the lowest price you can pay.
- The ‘suggested price’ includes a standard profit margin. And
- The “pay it forward price” subsidizes the solidarity price with a 40- to 45-per-cent markup for those who are inclined to ‘contribute’ and can afford to do so.
That approach makes 3 Paniers a true community-wide institution.
Tiered pricing a big success
The store has been successful in sustaining itself financially. Fraser says, more than half of all cus-tomers opt for the middle, ‘suggested price’. Many customers will shift between tiers, visit to visit, though depending on their financial situation.
So far this year 60 per cent of customers have paid the ‘suggested price’ on items, while 27 per cent opted for the ‘solidarity’ price, and 13 per cent have supported the ‘pay it forward’ price.
“Then […] we’ll get an article in the newspaper, and people will come to support that higher price,” Frasier says. “It really fluctuates.”
My take
We need more of these ‘next generation’ community food stores, especially in lower income and in-ner city neighbourhoods!
Less food is wasted along the way from field to table. More low-income families are getting access to the fresh, healthy foods they need so desperately in their diets.
In an ideal world, there would be an alternative food store in every neighbourhood served by one or more conventional, for-profit supermarkets. It’s a win-win: Most of the folks who use the alternative outlets can’t afford to shop at the conventional stores, anyway. The two concepts really don’t com-pete directly with one-another.
But… That utopian supermarket vision presupposes the rise of a new army of Becca Frasiers, and the cooperation of a majority of the producers, wholesalers and others in the food chain. And that’s going to take much more work by many more groups such as Carrefour Solidaire Community Food Centre!
~Maggie J.