A Fresh Take on an Old Concept: Grocery Below, Residents (and Customers) Above!

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It's generally accepted that the Tenderloin/SoMa neighborhood needs its own grocery store. The biggest hurdle is convincing a grocery store chain that it will be profitable to build one in this community.

I propose the creation of a new kind of grocery store. In a renovated building, put a grocery store on the street level and low-income housing above it. Included in the rental contract is a promise to purchase a certain amount of food from the grocery store below each week.

The new residents can also receive a small amount of financial planning skills to teach them how to budget CalFresh Foodstamps (SNAP), social welfare checks and employment incomes in a manner that will allow them to meet their agreements.

This guarantees the grocery store a regular income and demand for its products.

An analog ordering system that combines the concepts of Wholeshare.com and RelayFoods.com can help make this new grocery store run more efficiently.

Buying collectives within the building can purchase bulk items together and split the product. Imagine a whole floor of tenants ordering a bushel of corn at wholesale prices and splitting the burden!

By submitting their grocery list a few days in advance, the grocery store can become a "communal pick up location" rather than a traditional supermarket. This cuts down on food waste and allows the store to connect with the appropriate producers in a timely and efficient manner. The space could be used to teach financial workshops or cooking classes as residents with different cultural backgrounds share their knowledge.

The store could supply food to non-residents of the building, but the proposal's main goal is to convince a supermarket owner that it will be profitable to open in the Tenderloin/SoMa area. The two resources that this area DOESN'T lack is residents and a monthly income cycle. This proposal aims to utilize the collective power of these resources to make it profitable for a grocery store to do business.