Fruits of Their Labor
Detroit’s grocers feel taken for granted
By Joyce Wiswell
Grocer Rick Farida takes talk of Detroit being a food desert in stride.
“It’s definitely inaccurate,” said the owner of Greenfield Market at Puritan and Greenfield. “We will continue doing the best we can to ensure customers are getting the best quality and freshest foods, and these negative perceptions will eventually overcome themselves.”
Others are not so optimistic. The persistent image, often fueled in the local press, that Detroit has no quality grocery stores frustrates the many Chaldeans who do business in the city, some of whom have transformed defunct Farmer Jacks and Krogers into independent markets.
“We’re taken for granted, definitely, and part of that is our fault. We have not done a good job of promoting all that we do,” said John Loussia, owner of Value Wholesale on Eight Mile, just over the city limits in Oak Park.
Loussia is co-chair of the Detroit Independent Grocers, a subsidiary of the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce. Last year the group launched its Guaranteed Fresh program, which promises customers a clean and safe shopping environment and healthy, fresh food choices.
So far, 25 stores have signed on, but Loussia wants to see more of the remaining 75 grocery stores in Detroit get on board.
“This needs to be supported and encouraged -- right now,” he said.
“Right now” is key in this issue as the state appears poised to enter the picture. The Michigan Department of Human Services (DHS) is purportedly investigating a project that would funnel federal funds to enable grocery store openings by African-Americans.
“We don't respond to rumors,” said Gisgie Dávila Gendreau, DHS marketing and public relations director in an e-mail replying to a query from the Chaldean News. “What I can tell you is that the Michigan Department of Human Services is committed to increasing access to healthy, affordable food for all Michigan residents regardless of income or where they live. The department supports a number of policies and programs to improve access to healthy food, including Bridge Cards (they work like a debit card) and MI Neighborhood Food Movers. We continue to work with our partners and other agencies to find innovative solutions to increase access to healthy food for all residents.”

Chaldeans cry foul over the notion of a government-funded program to encourage entrepreneurship among African-Americans. “You don’t create entrepreneurs with a federal grant,” sneered Michael Sarafa, president of the Bank of Michigan. “Entrepreneurs create entrepreneurs, instinct creates entrepreneurs. Aren’t Chaldean grocers and others sophisticated enough to fill this so-called demand, if it exists?”
Jane Shallal, CEO of the Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers (AFPD), agrees.
“It needs to be equitable and that’s the main problem,” she said. “We should offer this to people of all color, no matter who they are.”
Shallal is co-chair of the Fresh Food Access Initiative, a taskforce from the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC), a private non-profit organization that is closely affiliated with the city. The initiative was launched two years ago in response to a study, Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Detroit, which determined the city is vastly underserved by grocery stores. In his foreword, Urban Scholar Thomas Kingsley called the report “a wake-up call” that demonstrates that in Detroit, “a fundamental underpinning of poor nutrition is the death of retail outlets that sell a range of nutritious foods at reasonable prices.”
The report said that more than 500,000 Detroiters live in neighborhoods characterized as “food deserts” – areas that require residents to travel at least twice as far to reach a mainstream grocer as they do the closest “fringe food” location such as a fast food restaurant, gas station or liquor store. Most residents are redeeming their USDA Food Stamp retailers at fringe food locations, the report said, which “creates a high degree of food imbalance that steals life and vitality from Detroit residents and from others throughout the region that live very close to many fringe food options, but far from a mainstream grocer. … That any major city located in a state with a rich tradition of agriculture can have such a high degree of food imbalance is troubling.”
The AFPD’s Shallal takes exception to the report’s findings. “They talk about food deserts and access to fresh fruit and vegetables, but the question is the choice that’s being made by consumers,” she said. “It’s the old cliché of supply and demand.”
Shallal said the report oversimplifies the situation. “It’s a lot more complicated than it’s presented,” she said. “People look at small convenience stores and blame them for not having fresh fruit and vegetables. But that is not the purpose of their format. People sometimes have high expectations of what these convenience stores should be and it’s just not realistic.”
Olga Stella, vice president of business development at the DEGC, prefers to look at the situation as a “missed market opportunity.” According to a study by Social Compact Detroit, as much as $270 million to $377 million in Detroit customer spending is not being captured by the city’s grocery stores as Detroiters shop in the suburbs instead.
Last year, the DEGC received a $500,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation to attract more food stores and expand existing ones in Detroit. After six months of meetings with grocers, wholesalers, banks, industry groups and academics, the Fresh Food Access Initiative came up with several recommendations and decided to first focus on grocery store attraction and expansion.
“We may have started focusing on bringing in new stores, but once we learned how complex the problem is it’s really important that we work first with what is here,” Stella said. The plan is to raise $10 to $15 million “just to get started” from public sources, foundations, banks and new market tax credits so grocers can improve their existing stores.
“That would only address about 20 percent of the stores we have,” Stella said, “but you have to start somewhere.”
Potential grocers have learned the hard way that it’s often not easy to open a grocery market in the city. Two small markets -- Zaccaro's in Midtown and Downtown Foodland in Lafayette Park -- were both open less than a year before closing earlier this year. Neither were owned by Chaldeans.
Detroit does have some excellent markets, Stella said, but with their old facades, bars on the windows and doors and outdated interiors, many appear uninviting. “I’ve been in a lot that may not look that great from the outside but once you go in the food quality is really good,” she said. “We’d like to help them create an environment where it feels like a brand-new store and start to change the perception of these stores. Many people don’t realize the quality of the stores we have or the potential of some to be really top of the line.”
Stella encourages grocers thinking of expanding or improving to contact the DEGC. “It helps me build the case of raising funds,” she said. “We can offer help getting through zoning and the permitting process, and help connect them with other resources or loan programs for small businesses.”
Another task force recommendation says food stamps, which are sent to residents the first nine days of the month, should be more distributed more evenly throughout the month to lessen the uneven impact on urban grocery stores. The AFPD has long advocated this change, arguing that stores are flooded with customers in the beginning of the month only to see business drop off drastically once the food stamps are spent. This, in turn, makes it hard at the end of the month for stores to pay employees and keep fresh food on hand before it spoils. The Michigan Legislature did pass an act last year that would change food stamp distribution to twice monthly, but in a case of bad timing it was preempted by rules in the Federal Farm Bill.
“We somehow got caught up with that,” said Shallal. “We won the battle but we lost the war.”
Other task force recommendations include greater education for Detroit residents about healthy eating and the important of consuming fresh foods, and reducing the costs associated with item pricing and bottle deposit redemption regulations “that disproportionately burden urban grocers.”
Shallal is hopeful that state programs will help. One example is Public Act 231, passed late last year, which grants property tax exemption for 10 years for new or existing grocery stores that expand or improve.
Many Chaldean grocers have made large investments in their stores. Sam Sattam poured $1 million into his Farmer John Food Center at Gratiot and Harper, one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods. Sam Garmo and Jimmy Marrogy upgraded their Pick & Save at Seven Mile and Van Dyke at a cost of $1.4 million, and Farida spent $2 million on his Greenfield Market in Northwest Detroit. Jamal Abro has put in about $2 million at this two Mike’s Fresh Markets on Gratiot and Livernois.
But a dearth of national chains, many of which fled the city after the 1967 riots and the resulting “white flight,” fuels the perception that Detroit residents are only serviced by small, shabby stores. The Chaldean Chamber is working with the Detroit Independent Grocers to prepare an independent report to counter Food Deserts, as well as a public relations campaign to improve their image.
The notion that national chains are nirvana was highlighted by ecstatic press reports in August that Meijer is building a 190,000-square-foot store at Woodward and Eight Mile. What, if any, grants or tax breaks the development is getting remains unclear.
Shallal believes that Detroit’s lack of chain stores, seen by so many as downright tragic, is actually a good thing for the city.
“With chains, you see the same format wherever you go but the independent grocers are a lot more flexible at responding to what the neighborhood wants,” she said. “They cater to their customers, and can survive where the chain stores can’t.”