New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s plan to create a network of city-owned grocery stores to drive down food costs is facing pushback from the industry, with the head of a Manhattan-based grocery chain threatening to sell or close the business if Mamdani is elected.
John Catsimatidis, the CEO of grocery chain Gristedes, found fault with Mamdani’s plan, saying the business couldn’t compete in the market if there are city-run supermarkets.
“If the city of New York is going socialist, I will definitely close, or sell, or move or franchise the Gristedes locations,” Catsimatidis told FOX Business. He will also contemplate moving his corporate offices to New Jersey. Catsimatidis said that he won’t make this decision after the primary election.
Mamdani, a New York State assemblymember who is a self-identified democratic socialist, has been closing the gap against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the lead-up to election day on Tuesday.
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Aside from city-owned grocery stores, Mamdani campaigned on the promise to “lower costs and make life easier” for New Yorkers, which includes building more affordable housing, ensuring buses are free and doing away with childcare costs for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years.
A user on X also called Mamdani’s proposal for New York City “the most economically delusional thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
By contrast, a group of economists penned a letter, published online earlier this month, saying “the economic data is clear: when the public sector steps in to correct market failures in the provision of essential goods, consumers benefit.”
FOX Business reached out to Mamdani for comment.
If elected, Mamdani said he would redirect city funds from corporate supermarkets to city-owned grocery stores “whose mission is lower prices, not price gouging,” according to a video posted on his campaign website.
The grocery stores wouldn’t pay rent or property taxes, which would allow them to reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers, according to Mamdani’s website. They will also buy and sell at wholesale prices, centralize warehousing and distribution, and partner with local neighborhoods on products and sourcing.
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“The job of city government isn’t to tinker around the edges, while one in four children across our city go hungry,” he said in the video. “With New York City already spending millions of dollars to subsidize private grocery store operators (which are not even required to take SNAP/WIC!), we should redirect public money to a real ‘public option.'”
In a March interview, Mamdani estimated that a pilot program for this plan would cost $60 million to execute, but he argued the city is set to spend more than double that on corporate supermarkets.
A spokesperson for the National Grocers Association (NGA) told FOX Business “that a more immediate and impactful strategy” to lower food costs “lies in enforcing existing antitrust laws to spur healthy competition among independent grocers and big-box chains.”
“We urge public officials at all levels of government to direct resources toward enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act, cracking down on price discrimination and monopolistic leverage, and to collaborate with state and federal agencies to break down barriers on swipe fees and regulatory burdens,” the spokesperson said. This will “empower independent grocers and strengthen food ecosystems more sustainably than launching government-run stores.”
The Robinson-Patman Act was enacted in 1936 and prohibits price discrimination that could harm competition.
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