Will the Syracuse Cooperative Market adequately address food insecurity in the City of Syracuse?
Located in the new Salt City Market, downtown Syracuse’s only full-service grocery store opened to the public on April 29th. The grocery store, known as the Syracuse Cooperative Market, is hoping to bring quality food products to the west and south sides of the city, the downtown area, and close to the Centro bus hub. Before the opening, there hadn’t been any grocery store in the area since the closing of the Nojaim Brothers Supermarket.
In October of 2017, Nojaim Brothers Supermarket, previously Syracuse’s last independently owned full-service grocery store, went out of business. The store was located in the Westside, a low-income, predominately Black and Hispanic neighborhood. Nojaim’s provided “direct employment, supported several community events, and implemented healthful food initiatives to try to meet the most pressing needs of neighborhood residents” (Mott, 2021).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city of Syracuse has among the highest poverty rates in the United States, with particularly high rates among Blacks and Hispanics. For residents in the Westside neighborhood, the median household income is $28,220, and forty percent live in poverty. A food environment report from the Onondaga Health Department analyzed Syracuse’s nine zip codes and found “the Near Westside and Southside to be the top two communities with the poorest health outcomes such as diabetes and obesity, the highest number of children living in poverty, and the least likely to have vehicle access” (Mapping, 2017). What I found the most interesting was that the Westside and Southside neighborhoods combined have more corner stores than any other area in the city. Corner stores typically offer less nutritional options and more processed foods, which most likely contributes to the negative health consequences that are found in those neighborhoods.
Opening Syracuse Cooperative Market’s second location in Salt City Market creates an incredible opportunity for residents in the surrounding area. Cooperatives are essentially grocery stores that are owned by the people who work there. Members get to decide what foods and products are stocked on the shelves, where those items are purchased and what quality standards both products and vendors have to meet. Typically, co-ops offer high quality local foods at fair prices for both the shoppers and producers.
A concern I have, however, arises from my experience in currently working at the Syracuse Cooperative Market at their Kensington location. Working there for over a year, I have found that most of the people who shop at the co-op are co-op members themselves, having the means to be a member and paying member dues. The cooperative movement often frames itself as an effort to regain local and democratic control over key community resources. I would argue that a key community resource is food, and the cooperative market should in theory serve as a holistic solution to a lack of food access in under-resourced communities. I am hopeful that this new location will improve food access, requiring that these structural barriers be understood, respected, and addressed by the community as a whole.
Sources
Mott, K. (2021, February 10). “Lotta food, NO money”: SYRACUSE’S poor have challenges that are much bigger than food access. Retrieved May 09, 2021, from
United States Census Bureau. 2018. 2013–17American Community Survey 5-year Estimates
Mapping the Food Environment in Syracuse, New York 2017 (pp. 1–29, Rep.). (2017). Syracuse, New York: Onondaga County Health Department.
