We’ve talked about the problem of food deserts in rural South Dakota. But even our biggest city, Sioux Falls, has areas where people lack easy access to groceries. With Hy-Vee closing its grocery store at 10th and Kiwanis on January 1, low-income folks in Sioux Falls will find it even harder to get groceries:
“If you don’t have the means to stretch your dollar for your grocery budget and with the rising cost of food and gas, you likely don’t have the ability to drive even further to get that food,” Lori Dykstra, CEO of Feeding South Dakota, said.
Dykstra says the neighborhoods around 10th and Kiwanis are already hotspots for food insecurity.
“We have a mobile distribution just a few blocks away at a church, Point to Serve church,” Dykstra said. “We know that that area is, that we serve it regularly. But we’re going to keep an eye on it and if this closure does cause some sort of larger hardship, we’ll make sure that we evaluate whether or not we need more mobiles or another site or possibly another day throughout the month.”
Dykstra says the entire city of Sioux Falls is seeing a rise in food insecurity as it is. About 15-to 20 percent more people have been showing up for their 14 mobile distributions [Lauren Soulek, “How Might the Closure of Hy-Vee Impact Neighborhoods near 10th and Kiwanis Ave. in Sioux Falls?” KELO-TV, 2021.12.02].
If I’m reading the map correctly, the only place to get groceries in Sioux Falls north of 12th Street and west of Minnesota Avenue will now be the Walmart way up on Marion Road at Highway 38. But if Hy-Vee can’t make it in this corner of town, can any entrepreneur come up with a viable plan to fill this grocery gap?
Desert, schmezert. Just have your groceries delivered to your home. They can come from darn near anywhere these days. If you can’t find a place to buy food in Rapid City you’re not even trying.
You can always count on Grudz to have some elitist non-answer for people who might not have transportation or the extra cash to hand over for delivery service. Really, Grudz? You’re a first class a-hole, beside not living out the reality of many people who live in Rapid. Rapid has pretty severe food deserts. Yes, you can walk to get groceries. You can take the bus. Try carrying a weeks worth of groceries for a family of four, then pontificate about how easy it all is.
In my city we have city government which doesn’t allow food deserts. When one grocery chain announced a couple store closures, the city stepped in, pretty much forcing the sale of the store to a competing chain that would serve the area. In my area, Hy-Vee has a reputation for serving elite areas, not hiring disabled folks and having higher prices. We are lucky to have competing grocers who are much more willing to serve everyone.
My suggestion is for the city to recruit a non-elitist grocer and subsidize it if necessary to serve that area. The city could refuse to allow Hy-Vee to convert that site to a warehouse. Maybe they could use a site in the elitist section of the city as a warehouse.
Dollar store types can make it. There are two of them in Black Hawk, about a mile apart. Or should I say $1.25 stores so they can keep paying their CEO $10,000,000.00 a year. Kadoka and Martin have those type of stores too. Super markets like Hy Vee are energy gobblers and it costs too much to upgrade them. Go in with a steel building shell and you have yourself a business. Ask the Chinese or Korean’s how they do it in the city. Mom and pop stores can make it, but it takes work.
I would add that grudznick’s flippant answer also ignores the deficit of internet/broadband service many poor have. As such, they can lack the tools to even make such orders — much less pay the up fees/costs for delivery. I do love again seeing the assumption that all share the same privilege as you, grudznick.
Is part of the problem for grocery stores the selection needed to remain competitive. Nobody wants a simplified store that only stocks a few, solid staples. I believe Rapid has had some success with the food coop model haven’t they?
Perhaps you should check and see if Grudzilla and magats recently purchased stock in local catering businesses.
For being a retired public “servant” Grudz sure gives off elitist Andy Rooney vibes.
All your goats R belong to grudznick.
So early in the morning
Apparently only goats can elicit morning wood for some.
grudz may think he casts a big loop in rounding up goats but when he opens his mouth he expresses a much wider bigger loop of ignorance….
Well, we have a socialist Publix store 1 mile to the west and one one mile to the east. Socialism is fine in Florida.
It’s been twenty years since I’ve lived in Denver, and I regret moving to South Dakota every minute of every day. I’ve never heard of a Hy-Vee. I’m fortunate enough to have a dependable vehicle I’ve maintained for twenty years and can go to both Lynn’s DakotaMart and Sonny’s SuperFoods, but $4.99 a pound for 80% ground beef gristle is a bit much.
There are both Family Dollar and Dollar General stores within the Hot Springs city limits, but neither carry much more than expired milk, snacks, overpriced Vienna sausages, and cheap plastic crap. Oh, and I bought some ibuprofen at Family Dollar that was accidentally cheaper than online.
My point is there are food deserts everywhere.
Amazon Fresh has free delivery on purchases over $35.00. They take food stamps, too, so I’m told by their website. All their food comes off the shelves at Whole Foods. Very high quality. The only issue I’ve had is that if you should get old salad (happened to me twice out of over 50 deliveries and I’m super picky), even though they immediately refund your money, they won’t send a delivery person out to replace the item. Maybe they aren’t available in SD, though?
Living in Hot Springs is like living at the buffet table of life.
Maybe the Lewis Drug across the street will expand their grocery selection.
Dollar Store an Dollar General are crap stores. They are not grocery stores. They have no fresh vegetables or fruit. Their fresh meat is almost non-existent.
And few to none of our local “farmers” grow vegetables or fruits for human consumption. Much of this state is a grocery desert.
Porter – no Whole Foods in SD. Closest one would be Omaha. Would they deliver free to SF??
It is true that there are worse eventualities than living in Hot Springs SoDak, especially if one can meet the income/outgo eventuality with no worse than a grimace. I can’t count my myself among the “struggling,” but I see them all around me. On the other hand, I am struggling not to be struggling, and it’s a serious race for a 73-year-old grumpy old fat man.
Greetings everyone. We ought not let our $1.4 million go to waste just because some lady lawn gnome used it once like some tissue to bot her lipstick before casually tossing it over her shoulder. Too bad we can’t return the botched psa in exchange for food to feed SD kids in leu of gas station pseudo-supper. Ol So Dak can totally be redeemed.
Meth: we’re on it..but only because its cheaper than food.
Sincerely.
How come when I google whole foods South Duhkota I see several stores showing up, albeit none called Whole Foods?
When I clicked to Amazon Fresh, a pop up came up and said “Amazon Fresh is not available for this location” and listed the city and SD and the zip code.
So maybe, start a food co-op or buying club?
Do you expect billionaire capitalists to serve you food? Perhaps some “bottom up” hypercapitalism-hypersocialism would create a business or social business that serves great food and creates jobs?
Instead of begging an out of state corporation to come into the Hy Vee Desert area, two ideas:
1. Create a buying club, where the co-ordinator gets $50 a year, and people pool their money to get fruits, veggies everything. Google this-
How to Create a Neighborhood Food-Buying Club. They suggest 7 to 16 families and one or two garages-homes to store the foods when they arrive. You can do it!
2. Write to “El Dorado” Thune, “Everyone can get rich” Rounds, and “Sure Smells like Victory” Johnson, ask them, Hey, is there anything you guys can do for us in this food desert? They might say something about marvelous legislation they are sponsoring that the naughty Democrats don’t like, but only covers 0% of the issue. Or you can ask them, hey does SBA get involved in helping– (read this)
The SBA, however, has been far from eager to help. In 2018, Congress passed the Main Street Employee Ownership Act as part of a defense authorization bill, pushing the agency to open its flagship 7(a) loan program to co-ops. Even as the SBA’s then-administrator Linda McMahon expressed support for the concept, Trump administration SBA officials did not change key policies that would have facilitated widespread access. They also failed to implement other parts of the new law, such as a requirement to start a program charged with promoting employee ownership.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-government-is-here-to-help-small-businesses-unless-theyre-cooperatives
A simple way around this, get someone with great credit to start the food buying club as a business, he puts in, say $500, requires the food buying club to pay him back in say 5 years. He draws no salary, only gets his capital paid back in 5 years. He could draw a modest salary, as he is the owner of the business. Then after the business is formed, he could apply for SBA loans, as this is a for profit business. (Social business, read Dr. Yunus).
What happened to the spirit of “We can do this”?
SD isn’t a good place to do business because SD isn’t a good place for your customers to live.
The majority of people living in Sioux Falls (within all income brackets and being disabled or not) do not live anywhere within walking distance of a grocery store and have always had to go out of their way to the nearest grocery store and/or find transportation to get there.
It’s not that HyVee couldn’t make money at 10th & Kiwanis in Sioux Falls. It’s that they couldn’t make *enough* money to suit their corporate goals. Shameful.