City of Seattle Eyeing Getting Into the ‘Food’ or ‘Grocery’ Business?

Stop loss is a term used to describe efforts to curb retail theft and shoplifting, shrinkage is another business term to describe these losses.

   City of Seattle eyes acquiring old Fred Meyer store

The City of Seattle is considering wading into the food or grocery business.  Mayor Bruce Harrell signed an executive order on Monday, October 20th. instructing the city to use some of a $12-plus million fund to look at buying or acquiring the recently-closed store on Lake City Way.

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The money is part of what Harrell claims is an effort to shore up efforts to provide food for 'needy' Seattle citizens.  For a number of years now, Seattle officials claim areas of the city that don't have easily-accessed grocery stores, convenience stores, or food markets, are called 'food deserts.'

The criteria used to 'qualify' as a desert include certain amounts of the area population living at or below the poverty line, and not having a food 'source' within one mile of the area.

According to MyNorthwest.com:

"The Mayor’s Office claimed that potential food deserts exist across Seattle, with several neighborhoods having access to only one grocery store. These locations would result in a food desert if the sole grocery store were to close."

The executive order includes potentially acquiring the old FM building to be repurposed as a food supply location or other entity to "benefit" the surrounding community.

Fred Meyer (Kroger) closed the Lake City Way store and a store in Redmond WA, in August of this year, eliminating 343 jobs. They were both closed because of theft and financial loss, or shrinkage.  While all the workers were offered positions at other Fred Meyer or affiliated stores in the region, at that time Kroger-FM officials released a statement that read in part:

“Due to a steady rise in theft and a challenging regulatory environment that adds significant costs, we can no longer make these stores financially viable."

Is the city ignoring the reason the stores closed in the first place?

 The image in our story shows the FM store as of 2019, before neighborhood crime reached levels that forced its closure.

Instead of addressing crime and related issues that led to the closure and the creation of the so-called 'food desert,' it appears Seattle officials are bent on getting into the grocery or food supply business.