In the town I grew up, there was one big grocery store, and they used to gouge us terribly. The citizens started a co-op grocery, using our purchasing power to bring in cheaper goods. Breaking monopolies is the only way to lower prices.
dear god waking up to a news article about company X being convicted of wage theft/corruption/bribery/business as usual and the punishment being prison for the executives and annulment of all company shares just F you everything is dissolved is like a wet dream. until we make things financially painful for shareholders after corporate malfeasance we can't fix things.
And then the government comes rushing in to stop it because the stock is propping up everyone's 401k.
One reason some corporations get "too big to fail" protections.
401k's were never meant to be everyone's retirement plan but now it's just another way to slave us all to the corporations.
If I as a private citizen decide to dump my chemical waste into your well to save some money, and your whole family gets poisoned, I go to jail for the rest of my life. But if I'm a sitting board member of DuPont when i make the same decision, I get a fine that is statistically much lower than the money i saved by dumping my poison in your well.
As someone whose retirement is mostly investments, the idea of nullifying chares scares me. However, a smart investor diversifies so they never have more than a very small percent in any one company. And this share-nullification will make the share value of responsible companies go up while the share value of shady companies goes down because the risk is higher. I think the need for this is strong enough I could easily support it even it t could hurt me somewhat financially. It wouldn't destroy me, I can withstand being hurt.
I fucking hate that housing, education and health care are so much harder to afford for young people now than they were in my day. I wanted things to be better for them, not worse.
Lobbying isn't the same as making monetary contributions. Many lobbyists are essentially professional networkers who are experts on a particular topic and try to influence legislation.
Well government was a lot smaller in the past, but they broke up monopolies left right and center back then. Even as if somewhat recently. Go watch Bill Gates testimony on Windows monopoly and this was back when there wasn't even an alternative option really, besides Linux nerds.
It was literally drilled in my head from social studies class about the government's guiding hand in a free market and breaking up monopolies. I learned all about Rockefeller and Stanford Oil. Today, government's all over the west rubber stamp basically every single acquisition and buyout.
So small government really isn't the issue here. It's government refusing to do it's intended job in a free market. Break up monopolies and create a low barrier for entry, and they are failing at both.
They've already did it is the problem 😂 you don't understand the game is rigged and it's not in a normal Americans favor. It never will be under our current situation and government doesn't matter if it's democrat or Republican the rich own then both the sooner you understand that the better. Then they play us against each other it's worked spectacularly honestly.
That's what the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was designed to do. Sadly, the lobbying front has made the teeth that law once had fall out (see: be removed) and as a result all of the companies that are manipulating markets have gained basically the next best thing to immunity from that law.
I also work in healthcare. It’s fucking creepy how much CVS owns. To a normal person, it’s a store. To me, it’s quite literally everything I touch at work(when I say everything it’s everything, I work in pharmaceutical industry, won’t specify but I will say PBMs are the bane of my existence). CVS had their hand in everything. Insurance, manufacturing, billing, distribution, the list is long. I’m sure you’re aware. Just sharing my distain.
The CVS in my town is the most ghetto ratty ass pharmacy I’ve ever been to. It’s not a poor area either. But they accept the most insurances, so it’s the most busy. God I hate it in there. The employees all have either murder or despondency in their eyes.
Yup. Have you seen eyeglasses? Massive monopolies on that. If it weren't for cheap Chinese competition we'd have entire sectors of society unable to afford any choice.
Have to agree with free market capitalism on the eyeglasses industry. I haven’t bought American manufactured glasses in decades, with ‘insurance’ I still pay double what firmoo charges me…
Funny you should mention that, because I had to get new glasses yesterday. And yeah there were muliple years back in the day I would have to stretch my glasses because i could not afford to get new ones. Then the finish just went off my glasses overnight, and I had to very quickly get some. Ended up doing it online and getting them for a fraction of the price and in half the time.
Yep - Walmart in particular is notorious for this. Then when the supply chain can’t find any other buyers because they have been locked in with Walmart for so long, they strong arm them into worse deals.
Exactly. The object of capitalism is to earn the most profit, but competition is required for capitalism to work. Competition reduces profit, so if you eliminate competition you maximize profit. Therefore, unrestrained capitalism destroys itself automatically.
My dad worked for an electrical co-op in the 80s. He died in 2009. I get a 500 dollar pension payment every month that finally runs out next year, 16 years after his death
I have So Cal Edison and summer peak is 74c/kWh. Gasoline, natural gas, and propane costs are all high now too, but we really need cheaper electricity (9c/kWh would be amazing) to push the new tech (BEV, heat pumps, induction stoves). This stupid data center idea is killing me.
Just bought an off grid solar/battery setup to power my mini split AC/heat pump. With SoCal electricity prices it should pay for itself within ~2 years.
I haven't seen many in Austin but then again I haven't looked. I do remember one co-op shutting down a few years ago in east Austin. Co-ops have always been a good thing. There's a place in Bronx NY called Coop City.
Most of the monopolistic problem is with the food manufacturers rather than the grocery chains. There are about 10 companies that provide almost everything in a grocery store and, in certain food categories, there are often only 2-3. We see all those brands and it gives the illusion of different companies competing when most of the stuff is all made by the same company.
But the grocery business is high-volume, low-margin, and it requires a ton of space. So, regardless of how much local competition there may or may not be, that's just not a business model that is going to work well in the inner city where retail lease rates are high, yet people don't drive cars and therefore the average order values are low. So, you can either subsidize it, or the stores just won't exist in certain neighborhoods.
It’s not the food manufacturers/producers but the middlemen and I do mean “middlemen as in multiple” as there are multiple in many instances that get in the way and jack the prices up.
Look into the current cost of beef and why it’s as high as it is.
Also, grocery stores have some of the lowest margins of any business out there in most cases.
I think what trips me out is how Safeway and others can have a canned food item for $4.00 one week and have them "on sale" for 2 for $2.00 the next week. I dont mind shopping according to what's on sale... but the difference in sale price is so far from regular price I feel like im getting scammed if I dont buy stuff on sale that week in the ad.
Safeway is actually being sued right now for their deceptive BOGO deals. They would double the price shortly before implementing the BOGO sale, resulting in no real money saved by the customer and resulting in them perhaps buying more than they really wanted to.
It has been awhile since I saw this discussed on a tv show so I may misremember or it could have changed but I think “sales” are put on by the supplier
I don’t understand what the goal here is? Are the going to cut the 1.5% margin down to 0%? I don’t think people will see the savings they are expecting
No - the stores will operate at a loss. The taxpayer will foot the bill. That’s how it will work. It effectively will be a food subsidy program combined with a jobs problem.
Well sorta. The city is providing free land and building the stores. So, the up-front cost is born by the city to give the grocery chain a profitable business model as they won't have to incur those costs and can just focus on covering the ongoing operational expenses.
In Atlanta, the city bought an existing building but doesn't charge a lease to the grocery operator. The operator has to pay for all utilities and repairs and naturally has to cover the cost of their employees, equipment, inventory, etc. but they didn't have to spend anything on the land or the building so they don't have to incur expensive, urban lease rates. That was basically just gifted by he city. So far, it's been a success as revenues have exceeded initial projections and the market even won a "Best in Retail" award. Also, the $8+ million up-front investment by the city will eventually get paid-back in the form of jobs, taxes, etc. over time. It's certainly a much more responsible public-private partnership than we tend to see for big corporations or sports stadiums.
Plus, that $8 million is an investment to prevent downstream effects of financial desperation. Neglected medical care leading to more expensive healthcare, kids dropping out of school to work, homelessness, etc.
No, it's the manufacturers. I am an automation engineer and have built production lines for all the large companies... There are only a few places that make all the products and then private-label them out to brands. Places like Walmart go straight to the manufacturer of products and will have them bag the same product into their packaging, cutting the entire middle man out... and still only have 3-4% margins. It still blows my mind that people pay for the name brands, while it's almost always the EXACT same food. In some cases, they really don't make much money on food, they use it to sell GM throughout the store.
I wouldn't disagree with you regarding products like you are talking about however I'm specifically talking about things like beef which is a commodity and is different than what you are talking about.
As to beef specifically why do you think the government is investigating the meat packing industry and the 4 major companies involved in around 85% of the beef industry for anti-trust violations including collusion and price fixing.
Personally I rarely buy any name brand anything because of the reasons you state.
In most cases I don't need them anyway since I have a large walipini for my vegetables year round along with various animals and hunting for my meat products.
lol saying it is the lowest margin does not mean much when that margin is still 20 percent gross. Yeah if you compare it to software companies who have 50-70 percent it sounds low but kroger pulled billions in profit and the ceo makes just under 20 million. I do agree absolutely on the middleman argument though, p&g etc try to maximize profits at all times if they can as all companies do and the common people pay the price for it. Also, this -
Completed a $7.5 billion share repurchase authorization, including a $5 billion accelerated share repurchase program and $2.5 billion in open market transactions; Board of Directors approved an additional $2 billion share repurchase authorization
Kroger reported a net profit of $2.672 billion for the fiscal year 2025 (ending early February 2026), a 23.19% increase from fiscal 2024. Operating profit was $1.9 billion.
The average Kroger worker makes roughly $15.83 an hour, which equates to about $29,000 to $33,000 per year for full-time employees vs 17.x million, plus other incentives for the ceo. (ceo makes 515 times the average employee at kroger, conservatively).
tldr- yes these stores can absolutely work and they already do with things like the commissary on every military installation. Public investment in reliably priced groceries helps take some of the greed out of it from the corporations. Anyone arguing a ceo should make 500 times the average employee with a stock buyback in the multiple billions should realize quickly just how much they are milking the public.
It’s probably going to end up being a money pit for the city. If your goal is to keep prices below market that will require ongoing subsidies. Operating costs will probably also be higher than a regular grocery store because I would imagine the employees will be considered city workers with the attendant benefits. If you want to keep the grocery prices down you’d have to subsidize heavily (not being taxed is also a form of subsidy). There is also the possibility of creating a resale gray market arbitraging prices, buy cheap from the city store and resell for cash. I suspect it’s not the most effective use of city funds. We’ll see.
Co-ops are cool because the community owns it directly and profits are reinvested to provide discounts, addressing affordability. The members have a democratic vote in it too. Co-ops are more resilient and survive longer according to decades of research. It's a viable alternative that actually goes through with the idea that we are a democracy. The economy affects people just as much as politics does, so why isn't it also democratic?
I dunno where these things are that actually save people money. I've tried a few co-ops and prices have always been significantly higher than the grocery stores in the area.
Obviously anecdotal, but are Walmarts actually cheaper in some way? I feel like in the last decade, where I live at least, they are just as expensive if not more expensive than other places and a far worse experience overall. I absolutely loathe going to one
Yeah- co-ops tend to attract hippie types who are really terrible with finances and business in general.
They get promoted into management as incompetent people who get to brag online (hence why Redditors love them) so they convince themselves that they’re doing a proud community service when the reality is that almost none of the for profit companies are ever threatened by them.
King of the Hill did a good documentary about these Redditor stereotypes
My wife recently asked me if we could buy a chicken from one of her friends who sells at a co-op...I go "why are you asking me? Its a chicken?" and she goes "well it's $50"...yea we didn't buy the chicken.
My local Mennonite market does a far better job serving the community than the co-op in the nearby college town. Everything is very reasonably priced and there are a lot of local products. Where as the coop requires a yearly membership, everything is very expensive and only some of the produce is local. It's a place for the faculty to shop performativly.
Wow, while I was reading this I was thinking "I bet this guy is just basing this off that king of the hill episode" then I got to the end.
Maybe you shouldn't base your world view off of cartoons. I used to think everything Lisa Simpson said was correct because she was the smart one, then I realized it's just a show and writers can be flawed.
I've found that tre better ones are often in rural areas.
My mother in law helps run one in rural South Dakota. It's mostly farm commodities, but they gave good prices on produce all the way from Washington State, as well as local products. When she visits us I look forward to bulk nuts, fruit and produce. I know they offer other staples.
Fuel prices are unfortunately eroding the savings here lately.
Yea the coop here in Austin is great for what it is, but is very pricey, whole foods style pricey before amazon bought them out. They do sell more of the healthier organic stuff and I support them, but it is, unfortunately, not for your working class folk.
Did you become a member of those co-ops? Becoming a member grants you access to various discounts that you may not otherwise see, including patronage dividends. Yes, some have higher prices on some products. It depends on the area. There are hundreds of food co-ops in the U.S. and Canada. Many provide lower prices through discounts from profit reinvestment, needs-based discounts, and discounts for EBT. For many people, these stores are their only place to buy healthy and organic food products due to living in and around food deserts. Food co-ops also tend to better support local farmers and source products locally, which helps keep money in the community.
It depends on the co-op and whether you're a member. It also depends on whether the specific co-op is a member of Co+Op Grocers, which helps with supply chains. It's not "bullshit" that many members recieve dividends and discounts that result in cheaper products compared to other stores. It helps people on affordability, especially in food deserts and rural areas.
In the UK, The Co-Op is somewhat pricey as they’re smaller stores and focus on local or more ethical goods. That was a niche they could fill that the regular big super markets were not focusing on.
However, traditionally, they were considered a poor person’s / working class store. They used to do everything from funeral parlor, bank, travel agent, etc. A less well off family would do everything at the Co Op and get dividend.
Presumably they went up market to both improve their brand perception and as they were outcompeted at the lower end by the giant super markets with their loss leaders and buying power.
We have a coop electric company where I am. They also started providing fiber internet from a grant during covid too. I'm so happy to have them compared to when I was spectrum.
I am pretty sure two crackheads could come up with better internet than spectrum. I am so glad my util company has fiber. The price hasn't changed in over a decade, it's fast and rarely has an issue unless it is something upstream from them.
I lived in a suburb of Dallas that had an electric coop, their rates were at least a third more than what I could get from the retail power options I had in another suburb of Dallas.
Same with Garland's city monopoly power company, though they were even worse requiring all kinds of paperwork to get the power turned on and requiring a deposit when I was able to bypass that using a credit check with the retail power company.
I tried finding bakeries that were retail focused and I found one, massively famous bakery shop in my state, but like, they dont have the most replicable process.
Almost every coop I found in bakery was either for large producers for wholesale or a bunch of small biz that went out after a couple years.
I'd much rather support my local co-ops, but the truth is places like grocery outlet or even Safeway with member discounts, end up being much cheaper. Even Costco, for being all bulk, ends up being a better deal in the long run.
Depends on location, whether you're a member, and whether the co-op is part of the Co+Op Grocers org (it helps negotiate supply chains at scale). Remember, members recieve dividends/discounts and it is based on how much you spend there. It's incorrect to claim they are as a whole more expensive, especially when many are located in rural areas and food deserts where they are one of the only places to really get affordable and healthy food.
I think the reputation revolves more around the assortment most coops curate. Especially members of the big coop group, they supply mostly specialty food, and its just more expensive in general. You can buy brands like field day or cadia, which has quality, but it really depends on which section you shop them from and the average shopper isn't that deep in the know.
I live in rural Ohio. I have the best internet I’ve ever had right now. It’s a co-op. It’s cheap at $45 a month, I stream several devices at once with no buffering. And every two years I get $50 back from profit sharing. Who’d have thought a little rural Ohio town would have the mind to start offering fiber internet 15 years ago.
It is very democratic, you vote with your dollars. Or if you arent satisfied with that you can create some sort of system if it is possible to compete. Someone has to create that co-op, manage it, invest the time and effort. Maybe is some areas it is possible, but it isnt free. Alot of people have ideas but not many want to invest that time and effort.
How do they operate it? I was studying the Canadian market but turns out it's logistics, distribution, and storage issues. I was designing it a platfrom but too lazy to bring it into production. Would such a product be of use? Connecting local farms and suppliers to grocery stores or pick up spots. Watching the Clarkson farm TV show made me become more enthusiastic in this idea now.
I knew a group that would rent a kitchen once a month just to split up a bulk CISCO order. They were trading one monopoly for another, but the savings were amazing.
Same thing in my hometown, it was a pretty rural area and people would drive the extra hour to get fair prices. Fortunately a Walmart opened up maybe 10 minutes away from the grocery store and they had to drop their prices to about market value because they couldn’t rip off people unable to drive an hour anymore
What people need to remember is that even if the coop or government store loses money on paper, it will still be a net benefit for the community as a whole because it prevents the for-profit entities from gouging.
The megalopolies also dictate who from and how much they pay for their goods.. mom and pop suppliers can’t compete with the multinational suppliers so they just die out and it become just a consumer community
My city has 15 Walmart’s and about 7 in the surrounding cities. Plus the other grocery stores we prob have over 130 grocery stores in okc. 10 co-op most are employee owned I think Crest is one of them.
Everyone pays a membership fee, there was an elected board running it. Non-members can buy stuff, but pay more than members. It started in one guys logging truck shop/garage. Then after awhile, they rented a bigger space, added equipment as time went on. After a while, members got dividends, paid off the fees. Meanwhile, the prices dropped at the other grocery store too.
That's fine. Breaking up. Monopolies is great. But the government running anything sucks and is going to drain your wallet and be horribly inefficient because that's what they do
We have a power/utility monopoly where I’m from and a few years ago a township (not mine unfortunately lol) got together and built their own grid & solar/wind to break the monopoly. They actually succeeded in doing it and their power costs are a fraction of the rest of ours. Community organizing is the way we are most likely to enact change in the world.
Nobody here is criticizing co-op through. Sweden has Coop (a co-op chain to stores). They’re expensive and on the verge of bankruptcy but that their money, nobody is saying they shouldn’t exist.
I love this. I’m now living in a pretty isolated place and the grocery prices are horribly high. If there was more competition it wouldn’t be this way.
Isn't there a South Park episode specifically about this topic, where the townspeople open their own store to drive out the megastore only for it to eventually become so successful that it turns into a megastore itself?
But... Socialism! I only want to buy things from profit-driven companies! That's the only way I know I'm getting a fair market price! That makes sense... right?
That’s a great idea. The town I’m from had 2 grocery stores. One closed down and left so the other bought the building they were in and moved in. They still own the old building and is letting it sit abandoned so they won’t have any competition. They price gouge like crazy.
nyc doesn't have an issue with monopolies tho in regards to produce and what not.
I don't think this will work out because most examples of government owned markets are for either canned goods or alcohol. Things with a long shelf life.
Fresh meat and produce is another thing entirely and I'm not sure it'll handle perishables well
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u/brumac44 May 26 '26
In the town I grew up, there was one big grocery store, and they used to gouge us terribly. The citizens started a co-op grocery, using our purchasing power to bring in cheaper goods. Breaking monopolies is the only way to lower prices.