Portland Tribune: The corner store gets a new mission

Submitted by cppwgrant on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 13:19

The following article appeared in the Portland Tribune, March 10, 2011. Used with permission.

The corner store gets a new mission

Village Market will offer healthy items, not beer or tobacco

BY STEVE LAW

Stephanie Mayweather decorates the refrigerated fruit and vegetable coolers at the soon-to-be-opened nonprofit Village Market in the New Columbia development. The market will bring healthy and local foods to this North Portland low income area.

On grocery shopping day, Pascal Ananouko boards a bus in North Portland, transfers to MAX and then hops on a second bus to reach WinCo Foods at Northeast 102nd Avenue and Halsey Street.

"It takes like, sometimes, two hours," Ananouko says. But, he adds, it's worth it for WinCo's selection and prices.

He emerges from the store with three grocery bags in each hand, doles out other bags to his kids and then they start the journey home, to New Columbia, a community of public housing and other dwellings created by the Housing Authority of Portland.

Starting this spring, Ananouko and other New Columbia residents hope to cut out some of their bus trips and instead walk to a grocery store called Village Market.

The nonprofit Village Market will feature a 50-foot-wide selection of fresh produce, bulk food bins, a healthy children's snacks corner, and ethnic foods requested by New Columbia residents, such as halal foods for Muslims, goat and lamb. There will be a deli with soups, fruit salad and vegetable salads prepared on site.

Village Market won't be a health food store. But it will have a focus on fresh healthy foods, including some organic produce, and food items will be selected to minimize trans fat and breads with high-fructose corn syrup. The store will have no cigarettes, alcohol or state lottery sales.

Food laboratory

A project of Janus Youth Programs, Village Market aims to serve as a laboratory for providing healthy, affordable food for a low-income community, in just 1,700 square feet of selling space. Backers hope Village Market inspires a new generation of corner grocery stores in Portland much like the bodegas of Manhattan, which provide access to healthy and reasonably priced foods for folks otherwise forced to travel far or, even worse, buy unhealthy, pricey food at convenience stores.

"There's a pretty good set of data that when you have greater access to healthy products, consumption goes up," says Patrick Gorman, food policy specialist for the Multnomah County Health Department. "If it's there, people will eat it."

Gorman recently relocated here from Philadelphia, one of many East Coast cities with "food deserts" – vast swaths of low-income neighborhoods lacking full-service grocery stores or other places to buy fresh foods.

Portland doesn't really have food deserts, Gorman says. But it has patches such as New Columbia, a community of 3,000 mostly low-income residents where people must travel long distances to get to groceries.

Half the population of New Columbia is under 18, says Amber Baker, program director for Janus Youth, and a third of the residents don't own cars.

Multnomah County recently adopted a Food Action Plan, and earlier won a federal grant that is being used to mount a campaign for healthier options at corner grocery stores. Those and other initiatives are aimed at reducing obesity, lowering the rate of chronic diseases, ending health disparities afflicting minority communities and promoting locally grown healthy food and the local farm economy.

All those goals could be advanced at Village Market.

"It's emblematic of this sea change that's going on in our community around healthy foods and local foods," says Kat West, sustainability director for Multnomah County. "It's becoming grassroots, even in under-served neighborhoods."

Filling empty space

The Housing Authority of Portland, which created New Columbia as an innovative replacement for a failed public housing complex called Columbia Villa, provided space for a corner grocery store at 4632 N. Trenton St., in the heart of the community. But it was wracked with problems, including loitering by youths, poor-quality produce and a perception, if not a reality, of drug use inside the store, according to Baker and others.

"People said 'no, we don't want to go to that store, bring our kids to that store,' " says Ananouko, who hails from Togo and is one of many African immigrants at New Columbia.

After the store closed in August 2009, the Housing Authority invited Janus Youth to have a go, based on its demonstrated success with Village Gardens. That program provides community gardens in North Portland and a working farm that trains youth, who sell organic produce to New Seasons and shoppers at the Portland Farmer's Market.

Though Village Market isn't slated to open for a few weeks, the project has mobilized the community, with an advisory board of residents, numerous contributions from volunteers and a laundry list of collaborating organizations.

New Columbia elders will volunteer to hang out with young people expected to congregate at the store. Portland State University nursing students are preparing educational displays about nutritious food. Orange Splot, a green developer, built the front counter. Community Cycling Center donated bicycle wheels to use on mobile food carts made by Oregon Tradeswomen participants; those will hold produce on the sidewalk.

The Oregon Public Health Institute is tracking the whole process and preparing a case study, to share the lessons learned.

New Columbia residents such as Ananouko are volunteering and closely following the store's progress.

"We'll know we're truly successful," West says, "when we can get for-profit businesses to adapt that model, and I think that's the eventual goal."

But in many ways, Village Market is unique, because of the community spirit at New Columbia and the need to only break even, not turn a profit.

"This is for the community; this is their store," says Michelle Oesterling, a 10-year veteran of New Seasons who was recently hired as general manager. Oesterling is working with farmers and other food vendors, selecting the product mix one item at a time. She hopes over the course of a year to offer as many as 200 types of fruits and vegetables.

Oesterling says she would have taken the job no matter what the salary.

"This is the job of a lifetime," she says, "and I'm humbled to have been invited in this capacity."

stevelaw@portlandtribune.com

Grocers don't want government telling them what to sell

The typical Portlander dashing into a corner grocery store "isn't looking for an organic eggplant," says Joe Gilliam, president of the Northwest Grocery Association.

So policy makers should recognize that corner groceries and convenience stores are fulfilling a role that the public wants, he says, and not try to dictate what retailers sell.

Gilliam says much of the nation's problem with obesity could be remedied if parents teach their children healthy eating habits. "For kids, the food doesn't get in the house unless the parents make a choice at the grocery store," Gilliam says.

He also favors the reinstitution of P.E. classes in schools.

On the other hand, he says, if the public demands healthier food products and shows a willingness to pay for them, retailers will oblige them. "Grocery customers have a huge power that they don't realize," Gilliam says.

Multnomah County, which is planning a community initiative aimed at fostering healthier offerings at corner grocery stores, insists it will be purely voluntary.

One early example of the initiative, funded by a federal grant, is aiding a handful of small Latino groceries in North Portland, says Patrick Gorman, food policy specialist for the Multnomah County Health Department.

The county is interested in helping the retailers overcome barriers to offering healthier food, Gorman says. That may involve refrigeration issues, technical assistance, bulk purchasing of produce, help arranging financing or linking local farmers to the stores. "We're trying to figure out what the incentive package is going to be," he says.

Though the county will use a carrot and not a stick, there is growing pressure on food retailers to encourage Americans to improve their diet, given the nation's skyrocketing health care costs, alarming obesity rates and projections that this generation of children won't live as long as their parents.

One recent example: the announcement that Walmart will demand its suppliers lower the sodium content and trans fat in the foods they sell. Food manufacturers ignore the nation's largest retailer at their own peril.

– Steve Law