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Food is cheaper in New York?

Jill

That’s what a Columbia University study says. But I’m with these ladies:

“Hell no,” said Tina Smith, a 47-year-old mother of two shopping at the Pathmark in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Center. “There’s inflation in New York.”

“I grew up in Denver and was in Cleveland last year, and here is ridiculous,” said Brittany Dierken, 27, while shopping at the Whole Foods store in Union Square. “I’m heading to get a steak for my boyfriend, which is going to cost me my first born, I think.”

Although these quotes illustrate why I kind of love living here. Where I grew up, 47-year-old mothers of two don’t usually respond to questions by a Wall Street Journal reporter with “Hell no.”

(And, for those who are interested in why food is cheaper in New York, the answer is that we have a wider selection of high-end food products which are sold alongside cheaper national brands. So Velveeta may be the same price or a little cheaper in New York as it is in Des Moines, but there are 36 kinds of better cheese next to the Velveeta in a New York grocery store. My bougie local market doesn’t even sell Velveeta (or Cheerios, which drives me up a wall because I love Cheerios). There’s no Kraft mac and cheese; the cheapest is Annie’s Organic. So low-end products are primarily available at big grocery stores and not so much the Whole Foods organic markets. And lower-end products are cheap at the big stores, but there are a bunch of better options on the same shelf that a lot of people end up selecting. So you walk out having dropped $80 on two bags of groceries. Also, it doesn’t seem like this study took bodegas into account, which is where a lot of New Yorkers do their grocery shopping. A real grocery store opened near my apartment last year, and it’s the first time in almost a decade living here that I’ve shopped primarily at a legitimate grocer rather than at a really well-stocked bodega. And bodegas are glorious, especially when they somehow fit everything you would ever want into a tiny space, but their prices are not low. Cheerios are like $7 for the small box. And that’s how a lot of New Yorkers shop, especially folks who don’t live in particularly well-to-do areas).

23 thoughts on Food is cheaper in New York?

  1. I found the article really interesting because it seems to refute some of the “food desert” memes, particularly the rural v. urban.

    I grew up in a rural area where people had to drive 45-60 minutes to the nearest supermarket or super-wal-mart with a grocery section. To do this, you had to have a car and the money for gas – no public transport even as an option (and due to low population density, it wouldn’t be practical.) And when you got to the rural store – as the article says and as Jill repeats – there aren’t as many expensive and ’boutique’ foods. So, not only are the really yummy expensive things not available at the ‘nearby’ grocery store to a large portion of the American population – the non-NYC staple goods are really expensive!

    I liked how the researchers took staple food price into account from both the big stores and the bodegas and corner stores that characterize an urban food desert – and, on average, the NYC staples were cheaper! Sure, some places are more expensive than others, and it’s usually the places where poorer people live, and that’s something that needs to be worked on…

    …but still. If you don’t buy the expensive goods in NYC, overall, the basic staples are cheaper than in rural areas – where there may not even be an option to ‘shop around’ or drive another hour to go to the next place. And where public transport doesn’t exist, so they’re paying more in gas than a NYC resident would for bus or subway fare.

    Frankly, this is why the framing of ‘food deserts’ as just/mostly areas where poor urban residents live pisses me off immensely. A subway or bus ride may take time, but at least they have the option; a subway or bus ticket may be expensive, but it’s less than a car, parking, and gas; the corner gas station/convenience store/bodega may be expensive, but at least they have the option of something close and the choice to have a shorter trip to shop somewhere else if they so choose.

    tl;dr – Food deserts happen everywhere, not just in urban areas, and staple goods are cheaper in urban areas/NYC than they are in rural areas which have lower average income to begin with. Let’s make the food desert idea more inclusive.

  2. I live in an admittedly affluent area of Northwest DC, and I have a lot of options myself, though not quite that many. Giant is the cheapest option, but now that I have specific food allergies, there are certain products I can’t purchase there. Safeway is farther down the bus route for me, and has a better selection, but it’s much more expensive.

    We do have a Trader Joe’s but its a few miles away, and I only end up going when I have to be in the area already. Trader Joe’s is usually more reasonable and somewhere close to Safeway prices. When all else fails, there’s always Whole Foods, but I save that for specific products I can’t get anywhere else.

    Yet, more impoverished parts of town usually have only one grocery option available to them. And in places like Columbia Heights, which has gentrified considerably over time, options are available, but they are more limited than in areas that have historically been affluent. It does make one think.

  3. I’m kind of surprised. Is grocery delivery not really available? That’s what I used while in DC and without a car.

  4. Food is an extremely tetchy subject… But my take on NYC food is that there’s tons of great expensive food shoved in your face, but when I only have like $20 to feed myself for the week, I eat just fine.

  5. I’m more familiar with the price difference between Chicago and downstate Illinois; Chicago has unquestionably cheaper groceries (which I chalk up not just to boutique foods and their customers helping to subsidize staples, but transportation costs. Most of the food I buy, whether at a supermarket or a mom-and-pop, was purchased in bulk from Chicago). Looking at the price comparison chart in the link, Kansas City had the highest prices—the prices that most resembled what I pay.

    And medium-sized cities have the same problems as rural areas when it comes to groceries. Neighborhood grocers are rare; shopping means megastores out by the interstate offramps. The economy of the Rust Belt has been steadily shrinking for over thirty years. Groceries have moved from the centers of cities to out by the offramps to accommodate the new, necessity-borne shopping habits. Meanwhile, medium-sized cities don’t have the population density for adequate public transportation (which is why you don’t often see evening bus service in cities of less than 200,000).

    That’s one more reason it drives me nucking futs to hear hipsters cheer when gasoline prices go up. Where I live, gas is already over $4.00 a gallon, and it made food prices *skyrocket*. The biggest percentage increase seems to be fresh produce….because it doesn’t keep (it’s already a problem finding fresh produce that doesn’t have rotten spots….and the salad bags are worthless; visibly rotted in the bag).

  6. I don’t really understand the point of this study, especially since they didn’t include bodegas. That seems like such an egregious oversight! Everyone I know who is my age (late 20s/early 30s) shops in bodegas sometimes–especially since everyone I know my age lives in the outer boroughs. I understand that it’s an interesting study, but is there an end-goal? Any type of policy change they would like enacted? Because as a New Yorker it doesn’t really matter to me that some of my groceries are cheaper than if I lived in, say, Memphis when the cost of living (rent!) is so much higher than every other U.S. city.

    And I’m sorry, but when 1.7 New York City residents rely on food stamps, most people haven’t had raises in years (if they even have a job), my knee-jerk reaction is to shout my best NYC “Go fuck yourself” at some economists studying the price of groceries from their ivory tower.

  7. @ La Lubu –
    YES! I get that higher fuel prices are supposed to make people consider taking the bus instead of driving – but not everyone has access to public transportation (coming from a county with one, count’em, one stoplight…) and when they’re driving home from work, higher gas prices -> higher food prices -> less/lesser quality food for themselves and their families. Unless the goal is to move everyone into a city…food just keeps getting more expensive, and kids still need to eat…

  9. And for those not from New York — as context may suggest, “bodega” = mini-mart = 7/11 = convenience store. I wasn’t 100% sure that that intuition was correct, but it was.

  10. sb:
    And for those not from New York — as context may suggest, “bodega”= mini-mart = 7/11 = convenience store.I wasn’t 100% sure that that intuition was correct, but it was.

    Thanks, I was wondering that.. just hadn’t gotten around to looking it up.

    1. And for those not from New York — as context may suggest, “bodega”= mini-mart = 7/11 = convenience store.I wasn’t 100% sure that that intuition was correct, but it was.

      Ah sorry for making that clear. So, bodegas are kind of like mini-marts, but also sort of like really small grocery stores that sell all kinds of stuff. They don’t usually have 7-11-style hot dogs and fountain soda and warm food; they have aisles of basic grocery necessities, like cereal and pasta and milk and eggs and beer.

  11. A simple directive for cheap groceries (and quality eateries) in NYC: Chinatown. In Brooklyn: Flushing. In Westchester/Fairfield: Kam Sen market in White Plains (and Aberdeen restaurant across the street). Find a Chinese market and you’ll find the goods. That’s my key to cheap healthy eating.

  12. Kai: In Brooklyn: Flushing.

    Flushing is in Queens, BUT Brooklyn is so awesome that it has its very own Chinatown (in Sunset Park).

  13. Haha! Thanks, gretel. I can’t believe I wrote Brooklyn instead of Queens. Sunset Park is good too. But Flushing rules.

  14. Kai: But Flushing rules.

    I’m going to take you up on your tip sometime for grocery shopping there! (And then I’m going to go to Spa Castle.)

  15. Also, like others I’m not entirely convinced by this study. As Jill suggests, sometimes the experience isn’t properly captured by the numbers. I lived in NY for 17 years and was always struck by how expensive food was (aside from my Chinese market solution), especially at bougie markets. Now that I’ve moved across the continent to beautiful Vancity, I still shop at Chinese markets but on the whole food here seems cheaper. It’s easy to find local produce in season, and you can get good sushi or pho or for the price of fast food. Unfortunately, booze here is hella expensive, so given my notorious thirst it kinda evens out.

  17. Just an * – Gristedes is price-gouging left and right, at least on the menu of items that I typically shop for.

  18. bhuesca: t higher fuel prices are supposed to make people consider taking the bus instead of driving – but not everyone has access to public transportation (coming from a county with one, count’em, one stoplight…) and when they’re d

    It’s obvious that food and gas prices hit poor people the hardest. It doesn’t mean that it’s still not a good thing for the prices to rise. If people think gas prices are high now they’d scream if they had to pay the real cost of gasoline. When gas prices go up, consumption falls and conservation looks more attractive. So long as we continue to make gas an attractive and viable option the problem will go unfixed, because no one even wants to or has real motivation to solve it. Choosing to perpetuate its use and the environmental destruction and loss of human life that comes with it is not some morally neutral position. It’s not even like the resulting pollution and climate change won’t effect agriculture; right now hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland have been wiped out just by this spring’s flooding. Short view or long view, neither is any fun.

    What the hell a bodega is; chalk up one more thing I’ve learned from Feministe 🙂

    @PrettyAmiable wouldn’t that wrack up to a lot each month? Grocery delivery has always been pretty expensive wherever I’ve gone…

  19. I’ve been traveling around the USA a fair amount this year, usually self-catering, and I’m finding high grocery prices everywhere. Food costs seem to be going up way ahead of inflation. Whereas clothing prices have been flat, at least for me, in the last few years. Same for electronics (but that everyone expects to stay cheap). What’s up with food?

  20. New York City is major transportation hub. Food costs slightly less because of this fact.

    Food and Fuel are being subjected to financial banksters bidding up the price of their futures. They are doing the Zirp game that started in Japan and is now US financial policy. They get loans of free funny money for nothing and use that play dough to buy up real commodities such as food and fuel. They don’t care that people are starving and their wages can no longer keep up with the hidden inflation. All that matters is that it is making them super rich.

  21. Food prices are also variable because they rely on agriculture, which is pretty irregular and unpredictable and which is highly subject to climate. Food prices have risen exponentially worldwide in the past 5 years. Comparing food to clothes and electronics isn’t the best, since clothing and electronics prices have dropped considerably, even not taking into account inflation. In part, this is because companies can keep clothing prices really low by exploiting women in developing countries. A drought will affect wheat prices and there is very little anyone can do about it, but clothing companies don’t have to raise wages, and once cost of living and labor demands in one country get too high, they can just move somewhere poorer where people are more desperate.

    Food cost/neighborhood correlation is interesting. It seems like food is cheapest in middle class areas, where consumers have the ability to shop around and are price conscious. In poor areas/remote areas, cost can be higher because people don’t have the ability necessarily to go elsewhere (and the costs of business can be higher in certain places if it’s remote), and in wealthy areas, people don’t necessarily care about how much they pay. Interestingly, I live in a food oasis (a neighborhood with multiple grocery stores surrounded by food desert), and with some notable exceptions food is more expensive here too, since businesses know they have a monopoly in the neighborhood.

  22. If you’re not politically opposed to it, there’s a Costco in Manhattan these days where you can buy (realtivley cheaply) and in bulk. You can also get cheaper food if you’re willing to take a subway/bus with your bags.

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