Mamdani Announces City-Backed Food Cooperatives in Underserved Areas

The pilot program aims to fight food insecurity by launching member-owned markets in five boroughs; advocates welcome the move while skeptics question scalability

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani unveiled plans for a city-backed food cooperative program that would establish member-owned grocery stores in neighborhoods lacking adequate supermarket access, drawing on cooperative models that have succeeded in addressing food insecurity in other cities while raising questions about scalability and long-term sustainability in New York’s challenging retail environment.

The pilot program would provide $25 million in startup funding, technical assistance, and real estate support to launch five food cooperatives across neighborhoods identified as food deserts–areas where residents lack convenient access to affordable, healthy food options. The cooperatives would be owned and governed by member-residents, selling primarily fresh produce, staples, and healthy food at cost-plus-small-markup pricing.

“Food is a human right, yet thousands of New Yorkers live in neighborhoods where the nearest supermarket is miles away and corner stores sell mostly processed food,” Mamdani said at the announcement in the Bronx. “Community-owned cooperatives can fill these gaps while keeping food dollars circulating in local economies and giving residents control over their own food systems.”

USDA food desert mapping identifies substantial areas of New York City where low-income residents lack convenient access to supermarkets, forcing reliance on bodegas and convenience stores that typically offer limited fresh produce at higher prices. These patterns correlate with poor health outcomes including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease linked to inadequate nutrition.

Food cooperative advocates point to successful models in other cities, including Minneapolis’s Seward Co-op and Milwaukee’s Riverwest Co-op, which serve thousands of member-owners while maintaining financial sustainability and community roots. National Co+op Grocers data shows that food cooperatives nationwide generate more than $2 billion in annual sales while maintaining community governance and values-driven operations.

“Co-ops aren’t charity–they’re viable business models that align economic sustainability with community benefit,” explained Erbin Crowell, executive director of the Democracy at Work Institute. “They can succeed in neighborhoods that traditional chains avoid because they’re designed to serve community needs rather than maximize investor returns. Lower profit expectations combined with community ownership create different economics that can work where conventional retail won’t.”

The city’s support would address the primary barriers facing cooperative startups: capital for initial inventory and equipment, real estate costs for retail space, and technical expertise in cooperative governance and retail operations. The program would partner with established cooperative development organizations to provide training, accounting support, and ongoing technical assistance to member-owners.

However, skeptics question whether cooperative models can achieve the scale necessary to meaningfully address food access in a city of 8 million people. They note that even successful cooperatives typically serve relatively small membership bases and that replicating them across dozens of neighborhoods would require resources far exceeding the pilot program budget.

“I appreciate the vision, but we’re talking about five stores in a city that needs hundreds,” said Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy at NYU Wagner School. “Food co-ops are boutique solutions that work in specific contexts but can’t replace the scale and efficiency of traditional supermarket chains. If we want to solve food access, we need to address why major chains won’t operate in certain neighborhoods–zoning, real estate costs, theft and safety concerns, narrow profit margins.”

Retail industry representatives note that grocery stores operate on extremely thin profit margins of 1-2 percent, making many urban locations financially challenging regardless of ownership structure. High rent, labor costs, logistics complexity, and theft create economic headwinds that affect cooperatives just as they affect conventional retailers.

“Changing ownership structure doesn’t magically solve the fundamentals of grocery retail economics,” explained Burt Flickinger, retail consultant at Strategic Resource Group. “Co-ops still need to pay rent, stock inventory, hire staff, and manage logistics. The reason neighborhoods lack supermarkets isn’t because retailers haven’t thought of the co-op model–it’s because the economics are genuinely difficult in low-income, high-cost urban markets.”

Public health advocates emphasize that food access represents only one dimension of food security, alongside affordability, nutrition knowledge, and cooking facilities. Feeding America research shows that many food-insecure households face multiple barriers including limited budgets, lack of transportation, time constraints, and inadequate kitchen facilities, all of which require comprehensive interventions beyond just store access.

“Opening a co-op doesn’t automatically mean low-income residents will shop there if prices are higher than the bodega they can walk to, or if they lack time and skills to prepare fresh food,” explained Dr. Kelly LeBlanc, director of nutrition at Feeding America. “Effective food security programs need to bundle store access with affordability support like SNAP benefits, nutrition education, and sometimes even prepared meals or cooking facilities.”

The Mamdani program includes partnerships with SNAP outreach organizations to ensure that eligible residents enroll in nutrition assistance and that cooperatives are equipped to process SNAP benefits efficiently. It also includes funding for nutrition education programs and potentially community kitchens where residents can prepare meals collectively.

Community development experts note that food cooperatives can provide benefits beyond just food access, including community gathering spaces, job opportunities for residents, and mechanisms for neighborhood economic development and wealth building through member ownership. Democracy Collaborative research documents how cooperative enterprises can anchor economic activity in communities while building resident assets and social capital.

“The value of co-ops extends beyond direct food provision,” said Steve Dubb, senior researcher at Democracy Collaborative. “They create spaces for community building, provide employment for residents, keep money circulating locally, and build democratic governance skills. Even if they can’t solve food access at massive scale, they provide meaningful benefits in communities they serve.”

Site selection for the five pilot cooperatives will involve extensive community input to identify neighborhoods with both need and sufficient organizational capacity to sustain cooperative governance. Successful co-ops require engaged member-owners willing to participate in governance and potentially volunteer labor, creating a selection bias toward communities with existing strong civic infrastructure.

Some critics worry this means cooperatives will succeed in relatively organized communities that might attract conventional retail with proper incentives, while the most challenging food deserts–often lacking strong civic organizations–won’t benefit from the cooperative model. This could result in a pilot program showing modest success without addressing the most severe food access gaps.

As the program launches, close evaluation of both food access outcomes and operational sustainability will be essential. Urban Institute researchers have committed to studying the pilot program’s impacts on food security, nutrition, community economic development, and resident engagement to inform potential expansion or replication in other cities.

Whether food cooperatives represent a scalable solution to urban food deserts or a niche approach with limited applicability remains to be seen. The Mamdani pilot will provide valuable data on cooperative viability in New York’s unique economic and regulatory context while offering immediate benefits to thousands of residents in participating neighborhoods.