Building an Oasis in a Food Desert

Should We Bring Back the Robinson-Patman Act?

Maybe your grandmother has told you stories of running down the road to the local grocery store to grab a forgotten dinner ingredient. Or perhaps when your dad was a child he was given milk money on Thursdays to pick up a jug on his way home from school. How many of us can run across the street to grab something from the supermarket these days? How many of our children walk past a grocery store on their way home from school?

From rural communities to inner city neighborhoods millions of Americans live in places with limited access to fresh groceries; what we’ve come to call food deserts or food swamps.  These pockets void of local supermarkets stocked with fresh produce and proteins were not always food wastelands. Prior to the 1980s there was no such thing as a food dessert. Rural, low-income, suburban and affluent consumers enjoyed shopping at a variety of groceries right in their own neighborhoods. They might have gone to a butcher for their meat, a baker for their bread and a grocery store for produce and non perishables. The thought of one stop shopping or commuting farther than a city mile for kitchen staples was unheard of.  

Forty years later, the situation has reversed and consumers favor options that allow them to purchase everything they need at one store.  Local, privately owned groceries have been obliterated in the face of chain stores and with them other small food retailers.  While some call this progress and efficiency, the fact remains, once food stable areas are now food deserts.

What Caused Food Deserts?

There may be no single factor that brought about food deserts. Academics, journalists and economists alike have speculated on which social, governmental, or consumer influences played the greatest role in the fall of the privately owned grocery sector. Urban planning, racism, sparse populations and income gaps have all been blamed for dwindling access to fresh food in pockets of America. But, tax incentives and subsidies funding the reestablishment of small groceries in underserved regions have all failed to create meaningful solutions to the issue. The fact that even when given legs to stand on, small privately owned grocery stores are no longer able to walk on their own indicates there may be other factors at work.

It’s proving increasingly likely that when the United States decided to abandon the Robinson Patman Act the grocery industry took a turn that had unforeseen consequences.  The act went into effect in 1936 and served its purpose for several decades. Even in the 1960s a variety of grocery stores were available in any given neighborhood from farm towns to inner city developments thanks to Robinson Patman. It kept big chains from using their sheer market size to bully suppliers into cheaper deals and held space for privately owned stores to remain competitive. Robinson Patman made it illegal for suppliers to offer special rates to corporations or build preferential deals that harmed small stores.

From 1954 to 1982 big chain grocery stores only represented 25% of sales in the U.S. But, the early 80s also brought with it a new perspective that efficiency should be king. Under former President Regan and his administration, the Robinson Patman act was abandoned, as in, it was no longer enforced. But opting not to use the act, policy began to shift in favor of big chains who were able to buy in bulk at cheaper prices and then sell goods at lower price points than private store owners could keep pace with.

Is it Time We Found the Missing Act?

After 1982, the United States was in a hurry to scale up and the grocery landscape did a complete flip-flop. By 2017 the local, small, and privately owned groceries only made up 22% of sales in America. In 2008 the USDA used the term, coined by Scotland, food dessert in farm bill language to address the issue.  

Would enforcing the Robinson Patman Act solve the problem? Revisiting a plan for enforcement would create more competition in the grocery sector.  Corporations like Walmart, Costo and Kroger who now have a hand in the majority of supply chains in their vertically integrated models of business and therefore have the ability to control consumer pricing would have to vet their deals through the regulations outlined in Robinson Patman.  Privately owned groceries would be able to secure similar deals with suppliers enjoyed by the big chains. The resulting competition could potentially drive prices down for consumers because they would no longer be solely controlled by corporations.

To be a competitive grocery store in the 1930s you had to open your operation in close proximity to people, offer quality products and have great customer service; and if possible, offer slightly lower prices than the grocery store on the next block.  Today competition centers on the greatest deal, the best membership program and whether or not we need to even shop for our own things or if someone else can do that for us. It no longer matters where you are located since competition is so scarce, the consumers have to come to you. Bringing back Robinson Patman would make competition about more than just prices.

And beyond competition, the use of Robinson Patman could revive industry in underserved areas. Chain stores swallowed up a myriad of small businesses that could return jobs and economic stability to the low income and rural areas that are now considered food deserts.

Would The Robinson Patman Act do More Harm than Good Now?

Can an old method solve new problems? Some aren’t so sure reviving Robinson Patman is the solution either. In the extreme it could be used as a government tool of control that uses vague language to inefficiently hold up small businesses and punish big corporations.  But it is worth considering that a push to enforce the act once again could harm consumers in that it is a strategic pull away from efficiency. Efficiency has given us some of the most affordable food in the world, would that still be true if we enforced the act?

Corporations revolutionized the way we think about product distribution and aimed to stabilize consumer pricing through more efficient supply chains. To use the old act in this new dynamic could mean everything gets more expensive for retailers and shoppers. If we are talking about protecting consumers, then perhaps the Robinson Patman act is no guarantee. But, if we are talking about protecting competition, then using the act could be a platform for establishing policy that favors competition over efficiency. 

In a world of Instacart and curbside pickup would small groceries be able to make a stand in food deserts? If the playing field were leveled enough to make room for privately owned grocery stores to compete at least on pricing, it’s possible that local retailers would pop up in food deserts. Perhaps simply selling fresh fruits and vegetables, non frozen meat options, and a variety of foods that appeal to diverse neighborhoods at comparable prices would be enough to build oases in food deserts. But, others speculate that corporations do more work to monitor consumer trends, expand selections and invest in methods to lower prices than privately owned stores ever could. In the long run Robinson Patman could dismantle methods of efficiency that do serve the consumer well.

Is Robinson Patman the solution to food deserts? Will it be efficiency or competition that revives these pockets of America? The problem is great enough that major cities like Chicago are scrambling for solutions that will create real and long term remedies. With a push for funding to enforce the Robinson Patman act once again 2025 could be a year of new beginnings in the grocery sector.