Comments on: Trusting LA British Food Invasion http://www.laprogressive.com/rankism/labor-social-justice/trusting-la-british-food-invasion/ Progressive Politics Liberal Politics and Social Justice Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:29:32 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 The LA Progressivehttp://www.laprogressive.com/wp-content/themes/arthemia-premium/images/button.gifhttp://www.laprogressive.com8831Description of your blog. By: Steve Lamb http://www.laprogressive.com/rankism/labor-social-justice/trusting-la-british-food-invasion/comment-page-1/#comment-68 Steve Lamb Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:14:17 +0000 http://www.laprogressive.com/2007/11/05/trusting-la-british-food-invasion/#comment-68 I happen to have a friend who works as a economist for a large British publication. We'll call him Chuck. Chuck knows I've been very involved here in Altadena with Lincoln Crossing and the twenty year battle to bring a first class supermarket to West Altadena (That effort having been achieved, is being undermined by the site developer, Dorn-Platz) Chuck knew that I saw the whole complex supermarket issue from the developer, community, market and union angles and that I had advocated a Win Win situation for all. I had even sought his advice as a non interested economist. Anyhow, Chuck called me up about Fresh and Easy markets and wanted to go on a market tour. So we drove around LA to several Fresh and Easy markets. It was both exciting and depressing for me. On the exciting part, small markets were being built. I long advocated for less than 60,000 sq ft markets having seen full service supermarkets all over Europe in the 10-12,000 Sq Ft range. So seeing a 10,000 sq ft series of markets opening was a small victory. Size however was where the victory ended. Prices were high compared to other local small markets (Something I have noticed is that national brand name stores have higher prices than small locals and given the economies of scale, this is illogical) Selection was OK,but the produce was just OK not really great stuff like I can get at Farm Fresh in Altadena. These are really bare bones markets and do not provide the full services that consumers even in working class neighborhoods, desire. Then there is the whole issue of a supermarket as a employment engine. These markets are basically run without specialty departments, meaning that every minimum wage job here is a dead end job with no advancement possible. Thats not a good thing in a depressed neighborhood. The jobs at Fresh and Easy pay lower than the chains, lower than Trader Joe's and less than our local Altadena market Farm Fresh. On the economic side Tesco has figured out that having a small store, small parking lot, no services, minimal wages and no benefits, provides them with the least expensive platform from which to sell food. The extra cost of supply trucks and loading is more than offset. SO from a purely capitalistic standpoint, if Tesco can convince people to come to these stores and spend, they should export profits from America to the home office in Britian. All round its a deep loss for the local economy, hopefully people will stay away in droves until quality, selection and wages improve. I happen to have a friend who works as a economist for a large British publication. We’ll call him Chuck. Chuck knows I’ve been very involved here in Altadena with Lincoln Crossing and the twenty year battle to bring a first class supermarket to West Altadena (That effort having been achieved, is being undermined by the site developer, Dorn-Platz)

Chuck knew that I saw the whole complex supermarket issue from the developer, community, market and union angles and that I had advocated a Win Win situation for all. I had even sought his advice as a non interested economist.

Anyhow, Chuck called me up about Fresh and Easy markets and wanted to go on a market tour. So we drove around LA to several Fresh and Easy markets. It was both exciting and depressing for me.

On the exciting part, small markets were being built. I long advocated for less than 60,000 sq ft markets having seen full service supermarkets all over Europe in the 10-12,000 Sq Ft range. So seeing a 10,000 sq ft series of markets opening was a small victory.

Size however was where the victory ended. Prices were high compared to other local small markets (Something I have noticed is that national brand name stores have higher prices than small locals and given the economies of scale, this is illogical) Selection was OK,but the produce was just OK not really great stuff like I can get at Farm Fresh in Altadena. These are really bare bones markets and do not provide the full services that consumers even in working class neighborhoods, desire.

Then there is the whole issue of a supermarket as a employment engine. These markets are basically run without specialty departments, meaning that every minimum wage job here is a dead end job with no advancement possible. Thats not a good thing in a depressed neighborhood. The jobs at Fresh and Easy pay lower than the chains, lower than Trader Joe’s and less than our local Altadena market Farm Fresh.

On the economic side Tesco has figured out that having a small store, small parking lot, no services, minimal wages and no benefits, provides them with the least expensive platform from which to sell food. The extra cost of supply trucks and loading is more than offset. SO from a purely capitalistic standpoint, if Tesco can convince people to come to these stores and spend, they should export profits from America to the home office in Britian.

All round its a deep loss for the local economy, hopefully people will stay away in droves until quality, selection and wages improve.

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