Blue Ribbon Report Calls For City-Wide Policy To Raise Standards In Grocery Industry
California Political Desk
July 17, 2008
Community Leaders Urge City Council to Hold Grocery Chains Accountable for Unequal Treatment of "Food Desert" Communities. Policy Would Heighten Job and Environmental Standards and Incentivize Opening More Stores in Underserved Neighborhoods.
Los Angeles – A Blue Ribbon Commission, convened by the Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores, released a report this morning urging City leaders to take charge in remedying a growing divide in how the grocery industry treats underserved and affluent communities. The Commission, comprised of leaders from the political, development, health and faith communities, gleaned its findings from public testimony taken at a May hearing, where community residents, industry experts, academics, workers and clergy described a looming grocery crisis in Los Angeles. To view the entire report, go to www.la.goodgrocerystores.com.
The Commission offers several recommendations to city and grocery industry leaders, including a direct challenge to generate a policy creating uniform standards for grocery operations in Los Angeles. "What is consistently clear, the deeper you look, is that this city can ill afford to sit idly by as this highly dynamic industry evolves in increasingly inequitable ways," contends Reverend Norman Copeland, Presiding Elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Southern California. "The stakes are too high for there not to be some city-wide standards."
Additional recommendations for city leaders include identifying new incentives – as well as building on existing ones – to draw more grocery chains to underserved communities. The Commissioners suggest, however, that those incentives be tied to quality of service standards. To industry leaders, the Commissioners recommend engaging more aggressively with community stakeholders. They also challenge grocery chains to increase store access in underserved neighborhoods and to increase health care affordability for workers.
According to Blue Ribbon Commissioner Jackie Goldberg, a former California Assemblywoman and L.A. City Councilwoman, these recommendations are just the beginning: "Together, we´re going to push for action on these recommendations – and we´re going to continue pushing until we see real progress." Illustrating this point, members of the Alliance and the Commission followed up today´s press conference by driving to City Hall and hand-delivering the report to City Council offices.
The Commission based its recommendations on findings showing that underserved communities are suffering the consequences of grocery industry "red-lining" on myriad levels. For example, testimony showed that not only are underserved neighborhoods becoming "food deserts,´" (a term often used to describe neighborhoods that have no full-service grocery stores within a half square-mile of their center), but that even in those low-income communities where major chains have opened, the quality and depth of their food and services is discernibly lower than in stores in more affluent neighborhoods. The cumulative effect, according to the report, is that residents, families and kids in those communities suffer from disproportionately high rates of diet-related health problems. Former teacher, Alex Reza, underscored this point during testimony: "In my 30 years as a teacher in Mission Hills, I saw children impacted by second-class food options. Study after study shows that children deprived of healthy food choices are less prepared for school."
Commissioners also found during testimony that consumers in "food desert" communities have much less opportunity to buy environmentally-friendly products. For example, according to research contributed by student organizations at UCLA and USC, stores in South and East L.A. and the Northeast San Fernando Valley are less likely than stores in West L.A. to sell recycled paper products or organic or locally-sourced products. "Our communities deserve the same environmental standards that wealthier neighborhoods receive and we want the opportunity to make environmentally responsible choices. I can have an individual impact by recycling and buying food that hasn´t been flown thousands of miles. However, we can only do this if the option is available to us," said Nury Martinez, in written testimony to the Commission. Martinez is the Mayor of San Fernando and Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful, an organization dedicated to environmental justice in the city of Pacoima.
The report also found that because most stores in "food desert" communities are independently-owned and non-union, their workers are paid less and afforded less training. Consequently, according to the findings, those communities end up suffering not only from limited access to quality, full-service stores, but also from the absence of what has historically been a stimulus industry for neighborhoods and the diminished professional standards that come with non-union stores.
"These findings truly illustrate a tale of two cities," says Elliott Petty, Retail Analyst for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), a member organization of the Alliance. "Most people know that major chain grocery stores have red-lined low-income communities for decades. However, these findings flesh out the fact that the lack of access is compounded by the resulting poor job quality, environmental standards and professional standards in the stores that do exist."
The Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores, a city-wide coalition of 25 community, faith-based, labor, and environmental organizations, first convened this Blue Ribbon Commission in early 2007. At that hearing, the Commission addressed the damaging effects of both the Southern California grocery chains´ "two-tier" contract and the chronic absence of quality grocery stores in underserved, "food desert" communities. A new contract has since led to the dismantling of the "two-tier" system for workers.
The Alliance, which includes many of the same organizations that defeated Wal-Mart in Inglewood in 2004, is also currently engaged in a campaign to bring TESCO´s Fresh & Easy to the negotiating table for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in conjunction with its Southern California expansion.
Los Angeles – A Blue Ribbon Commission, convened by the Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores, released a report this morning urging City leaders to take charge in remedying a growing divide in how the grocery industry treats underserved and affluent communities. The Commission, comprised of leaders from the political, development, health and faith communities, gleaned its findings from public testimony taken at a May hearing, where community residents, industry experts, academics, workers and clergy described a looming grocery crisis in Los Angeles. To view the entire report, go to www.la.goodgrocerystores.com.
The Commission offers several recommendations to city and grocery industry leaders, including a direct challenge to generate a policy creating uniform standards for grocery operations in Los Angeles. "What is consistently clear, the deeper you look, is that this city can ill afford to sit idly by as this highly dynamic industry evolves in increasingly inequitable ways," contends Reverend Norman Copeland, Presiding Elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Southern California. "The stakes are too high for there not to be some city-wide standards."
Additional recommendations for city leaders include identifying new incentives – as well as building on existing ones – to draw more grocery chains to underserved communities. The Commissioners suggest, however, that those incentives be tied to quality of service standards. To industry leaders, the Commissioners recommend engaging more aggressively with community stakeholders. They also challenge grocery chains to increase store access in underserved neighborhoods and to increase health care affordability for workers.
According to Blue Ribbon Commissioner Jackie Goldberg, a former California Assemblywoman and L.A. City Councilwoman, these recommendations are just the beginning: "Together, we´re going to push for action on these recommendations – and we´re going to continue pushing until we see real progress." Illustrating this point, members of the Alliance and the Commission followed up today´s press conference by driving to City Hall and hand-delivering the report to City Council offices.
The Commission based its recommendations on findings showing that underserved communities are suffering the consequences of grocery industry "red-lining" on myriad levels. For example, testimony showed that not only are underserved neighborhoods becoming "food deserts,´" (a term often used to describe neighborhoods that have no full-service grocery stores within a half square-mile of their center), but that even in those low-income communities where major chains have opened, the quality and depth of their food and services is discernibly lower than in stores in more affluent neighborhoods. The cumulative effect, according to the report, is that residents, families and kids in those communities suffer from disproportionately high rates of diet-related health problems. Former teacher, Alex Reza, underscored this point during testimony: "In my 30 years as a teacher in Mission Hills, I saw children impacted by second-class food options. Study after study shows that children deprived of healthy food choices are less prepared for school."
Commissioners also found during testimony that consumers in "food desert" communities have much less opportunity to buy environmentally-friendly products. For example, according to research contributed by student organizations at UCLA and USC, stores in South and East L.A. and the Northeast San Fernando Valley are less likely than stores in West L.A. to sell recycled paper products or organic or locally-sourced products. "Our communities deserve the same environmental standards that wealthier neighborhoods receive and we want the opportunity to make environmentally responsible choices. I can have an individual impact by recycling and buying food that hasn´t been flown thousands of miles. However, we can only do this if the option is available to us," said Nury Martinez, in written testimony to the Commission. Martinez is the Mayor of San Fernando and Executive Director of Pacoima Beautiful, an organization dedicated to environmental justice in the city of Pacoima.
The report also found that because most stores in "food desert" communities are independently-owned and non-union, their workers are paid less and afforded less training. Consequently, according to the findings, those communities end up suffering not only from limited access to quality, full-service stores, but also from the absence of what has historically been a stimulus industry for neighborhoods and the diminished professional standards that come with non-union stores.
"These findings truly illustrate a tale of two cities," says Elliott Petty, Retail Analyst for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), a member organization of the Alliance. "Most people know that major chain grocery stores have red-lined low-income communities for decades. However, these findings flesh out the fact that the lack of access is compounded by the resulting poor job quality, environmental standards and professional standards in the stores that do exist."
The Alliance for Healthy and Responsible Grocery Stores, a city-wide coalition of 25 community, faith-based, labor, and environmental organizations, first convened this Blue Ribbon Commission in early 2007. At that hearing, the Commission addressed the damaging effects of both the Southern California grocery chains´ "two-tier" contract and the chronic absence of quality grocery stores in underserved, "food desert" communities. A new contract has since led to the dismantling of the "two-tier" system for workers.
The Alliance, which includes many of the same organizations that defeated Wal-Mart in Inglewood in 2004, is also currently engaged in a campaign to bring TESCO´s Fresh & Easy to the negotiating table for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in conjunction with its Southern California expansion.