Mayoral Candidate Katie Wilson Proposes “Public Option” Grocery Stores To Combat Corporate Greed Induced Food Deserts

The municipal grocery store craze sweeping across the nation may soon be coming to Seattle. At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Mayoral frontrunner Katie Wilson said she will work with UFCW 3000, a union that represents grocery store workers, to explore a “public option” for grocery stores. As grocery giants close up shop in low-income neighborhoods, Wilson says the City should ensure that fresh, affordable food is available in every corner of Seattle, not just where corporations can maximize profit. 

Proponents argue that municipal grocery stores (stores owned and operated by the government) offer a promising solution to food inaccessibility, insecurity, and hunger, particularly in low-income communities where they may have limited options for grocery shopping. 

As UFCW 3000 explained in their press conference, Kroger is shutting down two more Seattle-area stores, leaving holes in the surrounding neighborhood’s access to food. 

“These aren’t food deserts, these are food foreclosures,” said UFCW 3000 Secretary-Tresurer Joe Mizrahi in front of the Lake City Way Fred Meyer, so busy he had to fight for a parking spot, that Kroger plans to shutter. 

Mizrahi explained that the corporation wants Seattleites to buy their tightly spun narrative that they have to close up shop because of theft, but the union cites greed as a primary motivator. Kroger plans to close the stores in lower income neighborhoods and then open new ones in more affluent neighborhoods where they can hoard even more wealth in the C-Suite. 

To combat this practice of “supermarket redlining,” Wilson said she would work with UFCW 3000 to explore the idea of municipal grocery stores—government-run alternatives that don’t play the dangerous game of profiteering off basic necessities.

Wilson said she doesn’t have an exact proposal for municipal grocery stores yet, but UFCW 3000 has been toying with the idea for a while, even before New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani kicked off a national discussion about the policy by including it in his platform. But his critics, which are sure to have ideological dupes in Seattle, have called the idea extreme or unrealistic. 

Wilson said it’s not some “pie in the sky idea” at the press conference. The government is already in the grocery business and has been since the 1800s via the military commissary system. The U.S. The Department of Defense (I know, not usually a shining example for much of anything) fully owns and operates about 235 stores across the globe, including 177 in North America, according to a 2024 report. The stores offer groceries at cost plus a small surcharge to pay to keep the lights on, but all told the food typically rings up about 25% below the cost at a private grocery store. 

But Wilson has not always been the biggest fan of the municipal grocery store proposal. In fact, just two months ago, she wrote a whole thread on BlueSky laying out her concerns with an idea she would support in principle. 

Wilson argued it may be difficult to offer lower prices in a small-scale municipal grocery store network that would not achieve the same economies of scale that help lower costs for large chains. She suggested at the time that these stores could run at a loss or sell staples at lower prices balanced by marked up high-end items. 

But even with her concerns, it is clear from the strong leftward lurch in the recent primary that Seattleites are hungry for bold, progressive ideas like municipal grocery stores. 

“We don’t have a blueprint yet,” Wilson said. “But that’s what the Mayor’s Office is for — it’s to drive forward creative and important initiatives.”