Produce department at a Pick 'n Save store
When Milwaukee Alderman Cavalier Johnson goes to his neighborhood Pick ‘n Save, he can grab some sushi, artisanal cheese and pizza or other types of hot food to go. If he doesn’t mind putting up with a bit of a crowd, he can go almost any time of the day and find a bustling store. Yet, long waits at checkout aren’t much of a concern. People with smaller shopping hauls can breeze through one of the store’s new self-checkout lanes. Those with longer lists rarely need to worry about a shortage of cashiers.
All of this would be unremarkable if it weren’t for one big consideration: Johnson’s neighborhood Pick ‘n Save (5700 W. Capitol Drive) is smack dab inside a hulking shopping center that has largely been abandoned by other retailers in recent years. Walmart left the Midtown Center (as the shopping complex is called) in 2016; Lowe’s got out in 2009.
Rather than following their lead, Kroger decided to spend $2 million on the Midtown Center store not long after its acquisition in 2015 of Pick ‘n Save and other brands formerly owned by Roundy’s. The money has not only added things once found almost exclusively at stores in affluent neighborhoods—a sushi and hot-food bar and artisanal cheese shop—it has also brought features like home delivery and much-needed additions like self-checkout lanes and refurbished décor.
Johnson said that, before the changes, the store was dangerously close to fitting the stereotype of an inner-city grocery store: outdated and sometimes dirty, poorly stocked and understaffed. Now, he said, “It’s unrecognizable, in a good way.”
Businesses Willing to Take a Chance
To Johnson, the project is proof that the main reason why more retailers don’t come into neighborhoods like his isn’t a lack of business prospects or concerns about crime. More than anything, it’s a simple unwillingness to take a chance. “When Walmart left, that took another grocery option from the people who live in that neighborhood,” he said. “But when Kroger saw that, they didn’t say, ‘The well is running dry around here, so we better leave, too.’ They wanted to make sure this wasn’t a food desert.”
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The phenomenon of “food deserts”—heavily populated parts of urban areas where healthy food is nonetheless hard to find—has received quite a bit of attention from academics and others in recent years. A study, released in 2017 by economists at New York University, Stanford University and the University of Chicago, further confirmed the common perception that fruits, vegetables and other sorts of healthy fare tend to be scarce in places that are poor. The study, titled “The Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States,” found that 55% of all U.S. ZIP codes with a median income less than $25,000 fit the definition of food deserts.
But, even amid such depressing statistics, there are reasons for optimism. Johnson noted that Kroger isn’t the only company that’s refurbishing grocery stores in Milwaukee’s inner city. Aldi, which operates a discount chain, is spending $37 million to remodel 23 stores in the Milwaukee area, including one in Johnson’s Second Aldermanic District.
Kroger itself has separately sunk $1 million into another one of its inner-city stores, at the corner of North 35th Street and West North Avenue; the company obviously wouldn’t be doing this if it didn’t think its business prospects were good in such locations. But Kroger also says that it’s thinking of more than just the bottom line. As James Hyland, vice president of communications and public affairs for Roundy’s puts it, “The residents of the Central City neighborhood of Midtown have been loyal to us over the last 16 years, and we see the value others might not see in Milwaukee’s Central City and its Midtown neighborhood. Where others have withdrawn, we’ve doubled down.”
Skeptics might say all this is being done more for looks than actual concern for residents. But, as Johnson notes, it’s hard to say a company that’s put so much money down is faking it. Rather than worrying that Kroger might not live up to its promise, Johnson said his bigger concern is to get other companies to follow the grocery store giant’s example.
“I think we need to spread the word more about good things that are happening in these neighborhoods, that there are good quality shopping options,” he said. “The more we speak about them, the more it makes people think, ‘I haven’t been there in a while. Maybe I ought to go back.’”
