Op-ed: Public Grocery Stores Already Exist and Work Well. We Need More.

By Raj Patel and Errol Schweizer

Published Aug. 20, 2025, Civil Eats

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Government-run, nonprofit grocery systems can better respond to food-price inflation, corporate consolidation, and inequality. Public grocery stores add to food security, offering something that food banks can’t: dignity, choice, and control over food supply chains. They can anchor broader food justice efforts, creating demand for values-based purchasing that prioritizes worker dignity, environmental sustainability, and racial equity.

The blueprint is clear. With the commissary as a template, take a page from Costco to build "Uncle Sam's Club": pile the produce high, staff the floor with union labor, stock the shelves with good food, offer home delivery, and make it as beautiful as the New York Public Library, because the working class deserve nothing but the best. If the private market cannot or will not deliver affordable, nutritious food to all its citizens -- and it has proven that it won’t—then the public sector must.

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