{"id":394401,"date":"2025-11-21T10:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394401\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T10:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:10:11","slug":"new-york-gets-serious-about-food-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394401\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Gets Serious About Food Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Two months ago, I wrote about Zohran Mamdani\u2019s proposal for public grocery stores<\/a> in New York City, and the challenges it would face from big-box stores that control the market. The crux of the issue, I argued, is that small grocers\u2014whether they\u2019re public, private, or somewhere in between\u2014are forced to compete with massive corporations that receive price discounts from food and beverage distribution companies. Those discounts allow the Walmarts of the world to sell their goods for low prices, making it almost impossible for mom-and-pop retailers to compete while still making a profit.<\/p>\n

More from Emma Janssen<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

One solution to this is to dissolve all small New York City grocers and bodegas in favor of Walmart, but that lack of competition would almost certainly result in higher margins for Walmart and higher overall prices for us. Fortunately, there is a law already on the books that could stop the unfair practices that give big-box stores a leg up: the Robinson-Patman Act, passed in 1936. Unfortunately, starting around 1980, both Democratic and Republican administrations stopped enforcing the law.<\/p>\n

Under Lina Khan, President Biden\u2019s Federal Trade Commission chair, the FTC brought two Robinson-Patman cases to court. The Trump administration has since dropped one, but the other is still being litigated.<\/p>\n

Now, on the tailwinds of Mamdani\u2019s election as mayor, New York state lawmakers have introduced a state version of the RPA, to enable smaller retailers to access supplier discounts. This provides a state backstop in case the federal government won\u2019t step up to enforce the law. More importantly, there\u2019s some promise that lawmakers in the state assembly could work with Mamdani\u2019s administration to tackle high food prices through a combination of his public grocery proposal and the proposed antitrust law. With Khan co-chairing Mamdani\u2019s transition team<\/a> and looking for new authorities to lower prices,<\/a> antitrust policy seems to be a given in New York\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

THE CONSUMER GROCERY PRICING FAIRNESS ACT<\/strong>, sponsored by state Assemblymember Micah Lasher and state Sen. Cordell Cleare, is essentially a state-sized version of the Robinson-Patman Act. If passed, it would empower New York\u2019s attorney general to sue distributors who offer unfair discounts (as defined in the bill) to big-box stores without offering them to smaller retailers. Under the law, business owners could also bring civil suits against companies engaged in unfair practices, but Lasher said he expects the lion\u2019s share of enforcement to come from the state attorney general.<\/p>\n

Enforcement would be a major help to independent grocers across the state. Small grocers have been struggling to keep up with big-box stores for decades; the six biggest grocers now control 60 percent of all sales<\/a>, and suppliers are heavily concentrated<\/a> as well. The mutual back-scratching of these oligarchical giants leaves independent competitors out in the cold. This has accelerated\u2014or, arguably, caused\u2014the rise of food deserts across America<\/a>, in both urban and rural areas.<\/p>\n

\n

New York state lawmakers have introduced a state version of the Robinson-Patman Act, to enable smaller retailers to access supplier discounts.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anthony Pe\u00f1a, vice president of the National Supermarket Association and a grocery store owner himself, described the kinds of price discrimination that small-business owners see every day: \u201cIt\u2019s hard when you\u2019re buying Tropicana orange juice at $3.90 a unit and you have to make something [off] of it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then Costco is selling two of them for like, $5.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customers see the price differences between their independent grocer and the nearest Kroger or Walmart. At a time when 47 million Americans are food insecure<\/a>, many simply can\u2019t afford to shop at their local market, even if they\u2019d otherwise prefer to.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to sometimes work magic to compete with the national chains,\u201d Pe\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n

Without any enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, he said, \u201cthere\u2019s no defense against a Goliath such as that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed bill, particularly in conjunction with Mamdani\u2019s leadership and Khan\u2019s guidance, could be exactly what grocers like Pe\u00f1a need to level the playing field, enabling them to offer cheaper prices to customers and outmaneuver the big-box stores. Zephyr Teachout, an attorney and strong advocate for antitrust policies, certainly thinks that Khan\u2019s involvement on Mamdani\u2019s transition team bodes well for small grocers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the key things that [Khan] did at the FTC is treat law like law. Not downstream of the preferences of a few well-heeled economists, but actually the embodiment of public deliberation and decision,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Both Khan and Mamdani have made a practice of elevating small-business owners, who would be some of the main beneficiaries of this law. Khan held dozens of roundtables with small-business owners during her tenure as FTC chair. Mamdani shouted out \u201cYemeni bodega owners\u201d in his victory speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n

THOUGH THE BILL WOULD APPLY TO ALL OF NEW YORK<\/strong>, not just New York City, it would be a major boost to Mamdani\u2019s proposal for public grocery stores, which would benefit from lower supplier costs and don\u2019t have to show the same profits as private retailers. That could eventually bring lower grocery prices. Lasher acknowledged the bill\u2019s connections to Mamdani\u2019s affordability-centered campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cAffordability was the central topic of the New York City mayoral election, and has been an animating topic of politics nationally for some time, as it should be,\u201d Lasher said, describing the inspiration behind the bill. \u201cAt some point over the summer, there was a bunch of discussion in various media outlets and obviously Mamdani had been talking about public grocery stores in New York. So the topic of what is driving the high cost of groceries and how to address that \u2026 was very much on my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Lasher hopes that, if passed, the law would have a wide-ranging impact across the state, including areas where Walmart and other big-box retailers are reluctant to add stores, and where smaller substitutes are subject to price discrimination from suppliers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever one thinks about the wisdom of his proposal, the reality is that to address both the cost of groceries and the proximate availability of groceries to New Yorkers requires a broader, more structural change than will be delivered even in the best of circumstances with a handful of public grocery stores,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Other states have tested the idea of a state-level Robinson-Patman Act, with mixed results. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, eight states have some form of price discrimination law<\/a> on the books. This spring, Minnesota lawmakers introduced the Consumer Grocery Pricing Fairness Act<\/a>, but it remains in committee. If the legislature passes this law and New York\u2019s attorney general seriously enforces it, New York could set an example for the nation.<\/p>\n

As Lasher pointed out, affordability has become the driving political issue in recent elections, from city offices to the presidency. The affordability of food in particular\u2014with seemingly unending egg price discourse, SNAP cuts, inflation, and now Mamdani\u2019s innovative proposals\u2014has taken center stage.<\/p>\n

Lasher announced on September 15 that he is running for Rep. Jerrold Nadler\u2019s congressional seat<\/a> in NY-12, which includes the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, and Midtown Manhattan. Another sponsor of the bill, state Assemblymember Alex Bores, jumped into the NY-12 race just a month later.<\/p>\n

Lasher and Bores\u2019s focus on food costs and antitrust policy, coupled with Mamdani\u2019s win, provides a clear signal that affordability, food deserts, and the health of small grocers are ascendant issues in our politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be really smart of [New York Gov.] Kathy Hochul to seize this moment,\u201d Teachout said about the politics of the bill. \u201cThis fair pricing law is really about prohibiting this bullying form of pricing that shuts out small farmers, so it shuts out the farmers upstate, and shuts out grocery stores upstate, [and] shuts out the grocers in the city. It brings together so many different strands.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the bill passes, it would be a major boon to small grocers like Pe\u00f1a, as well the bodega owners who endorsed Mamdani<\/a> in the final days of his campaign. Lawsuits brought under the law would likely move slowly, but would be a major signal that the state took affordable grocery pricing seriously, which might make distributors more careful before restricting independent retailers from discounts.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Mamdani has other options open to him. There\u2019s his public grocery pilot program. But he also could use the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection\u2019s rulemaking capacity to enforce fair grocery pricing alongside a whole host of other affordability measures, as Kiren Gopal wrote in the<\/a> Prospect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grocers like Pe\u00f1a are optimistic that the political winds are shifting to support independent stores and cash-strapped consumers. He hopes this advocacy will make the value of small grocers apparent to their neighborhoods and lawmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re part of the community,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of the independent. We can adapt to our neighborhoods extremely well.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the bill is passed, he says, \u201cit\u2019ll be a lifeline for the small independent grocers, and it\u2019ll put us in a position where we actually have a tool to use in order to [level] the playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRecommended Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two months ago, I wrote about Zohran Mamdani\u2019s proposal for public grocery stores in New York City, and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[8161,5229,3227,39967,12042,49313,5371,71984,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,9207,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-394401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-affordability","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-antitrust","11":"tag-cities-communities","12":"tag-economic-policy","13":"tag-grocery-stores","14":"tag-kathy-hochul","15":"tag-lina-khan","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkcity","20":"tag-ny","21":"tag-nyc","22":"tag-small-business","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}