Re: “Seattle, let’s reimagine grocery stores” (Dec. 11, Opinion):
I need to remind the writer and Seattle taxpayers that grocery stores operate on extremely thin profit margins. I’ll restate: Grocery stores do not make tons of money beyond their operating costs. They are complex businesses with supply-chain issues, person-power issues, specialty-worker needs (butchers, bakers, produce people, etc.), and cost of goods issues.
Yes, groceries are not cheap, but supposed “high grocery prices” are fair given the realities grocery stores face. The Whole Foods comparison is not entirely valid since, yes, it offers luxury items, but it needs to charge more for those luxury items.
Believing that the city can somehow replicate the efforts of a mainstream grocery store is entirely unrealistic. Thinking that prices could be “set 25% to 30% lower than corporate alternatives” is also unrealistic. The suggestion of lowering property taxes for a city/nonprofit entity shifts costs to the taxpayer at large. Lower rents — who will pay for that?
Imagine a city entity attempting to replicate the efforts of established grocery providers, magically at lower cost. You are not imagining, you are dreaming.
Chris Whitmyre, Burien
