Bodega owners ask NYC for help as grocery delivery apps expand in Five Boroughs... UPDATE 7/17/22

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Bodega owners ask NYC for help as grocery delivery apps expand in Five Boroughs | amNewYork

By Kirstyn Brendlen

Posted on December 3, 2021

Farm Shop Deli, a bodega in Park Slope.
Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

New York City bodega associations are asking the city for help — and for regulations for an up-and-coming industry threat.

Francisco Marte, founder of the Bodega and Small Business Group, and Radhamés Rodríguez, president of United Bodegas of America, are calling for financial help for bodegas across the city, and raising a red flag for a new delivery businesses they say may pose an existential threat to their livelihoods.

“These startup companies offering 10-20 minute grocery delivery will compete directly with our family-run bodegas,” Rodríguez said in a release. “If we don’t take action, thousands of our businesses will close their doors in the next six months, creating additional food deserts and harming New Yorkers’ access to food.”


Those startups are app-based grocery delivery services like JOKR, Gorillas, and Buyk, who offer a full range of supermarket goods delivered to your door in minutes. With prices comparable or lower to what’s found in brick-and-mortar stores, no minimum purchase, and low or nonexistent delivery fees, the apps give customers the opportunity to get their hands on one or two forgotten items — or a whole week’s worth of food — with just a few taps.

A Gorillas courier maneuvers through traffic as she is leaving the warehouse in Chinatown to deliver groceries.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

Some bodega owners worry that the apps, most of which launched in New York City this year, are encroaching on a niche previously filled only by the neighborhood corner store.

Bodegas – found on almost every block carrying everything from basics like dish soap and eggs to deli sandwiches and beer – have received no help during the pandemic, Marte said, and have struggled even as the city has come back to life.

Marte and Rodríguez are asking the city — and the incoming Adams administration — to invest in bodegas with “targeted public policy programs,” including helping to develop technology that bodegas can use to stay competitive.

“Some kind of support to show apps that can be directed to use the bodegas,” Marte told amNY. “Bodegas are not too savvy with this technology. We’ve already been working with one, but they don’t have the resources or the funding to compete.”

My Bodega Online, which launched last year, currently works with a small number of bodegas in the Bronx, providing a platform for online ordering and delivery.

 

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Jose Bello, the app’s founder, told amNY last month that adapting to the rapidly-changing tech landscape is critical for bodegas, and said acting quickly is imperative for bodegas as quick-commerce delivery apps continue to grow.

“This half a billion dollar industry was created in the last 18 months,” he said. “By the time that people realize the effect that they may or may not have —maybe either they burst as a bubble, or they take over everything — it’s too late, they are here.”

“It would be great if the new administration could help to create some technologies that help the bodegas against those dark store corporations,” Marte said. “Everything is turning to more technologies, we cannot be left behind.”

They should also consider the lack of help bodegas received during the pandemic, he said, even as they stayed open to provide their communities with food and other essentials.

“A lot of bodegas are behind on the rent, behind on the ConEd electrical bills,” he said. “We need the support so we can stay here. The bodegas, we are there to help the community. When no one wanted to risk, we are there to risk ourselves to protect and serve our communities.”

Wealthy, trendier neighborhoods like Downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and lower Manhattan have been the launching sites for quick-commerce grocery delivery apps, who are seeking an audience in affluent young families and professionals.

The companies purchase their stock – which is usually comprised of about 2,000 individual items – wholesale from retailers and operate via “dark stores,” small warehouses with a delivery radius of about a mile. With billions of dollars in financing from venture capitalists and a wealth of available real estate, expansion has been quick and easy for most of the apps – and some, like Buyk – are growing outside of their Brooklyn and Manhattan incubators, launching in the Bronx and parts of Queens.

Marte and Rodriguez are also asking the city to take a look at the zoning regulations in the neighborhoods where these dark stores are opening “to prevent unregulated micro-fulfillment hubs in residential zones and commercial zones,” and urging them to require quick-commerce apps to offer EBT services to their customers online.

JOKR’s micro-warehouse -or “dark store” – in the Financial District.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann

“We have already been talking to the Manhattan Borough President, Ms. Gale [Brewer]” Marte said. “She’s interested in helping and taking a look at the dark stores to see where they are open, where they are operating, what licensing they are using.”

Brewer will be returning to the city council representing part of Manhattan’s Upper West Side next year, and he’s hopeful that she will continue to champion the cause there, especially if her bid for speaker is successful.

They have had some conversations with some other local elected officials, he said, but plans are on hold until the city government changes over in January.

“I just want to keep fighting against them,” he said. “These corporations have billions of dollars to promote themselves. In the beginning, some of them, they can take a loss and they can compete with us. They know that they just want to establish a business, and they don’t give any support to the community.”

Bodegas are a longtime staple of New York City neighborhoods, he said, and usually owned and operated by immigrant families and employing people from the community.

“You see any problems happening, people, where do they run? To the closest bodega that is open for protection,” he said. “If you don’t have money and you need something to eat, where do you go? To the bodega, to ask them to give you something until they can pay.”

He urged politicians to step up to help bodegas before things get too dire.

“At the worst time, when the city shut down, we stayed open,” Marte said. “We risked our lives, we risked our health, we risked our families health to give service to the community.”

Read more about grocery delivery apps in our recently-concluded The Race to Deliver series.

 

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they can still compete on hours open since i doubt these dark-stores/micro-warehouses are open 24/7 or late night.

theres still people to serve who don't want to spend $XX amount of cash when they just need one thing.

it'll be tough for sure.

 

[Doobie Doo]

they can still compete on hours open since i doubt these dark-stores/micro-warehouses are open 24/7 or late night.

theres still people to serve who don't want to spend $XX amount of cash when they just need one thing.

it'll be tough for sure.

You think late night traffic is enough to sustain a 24/7 business?

 

[BaggerofTea]

These fukkers want a handout, fukk them

 

[bnew]

You think late night traffic is enough to sustain a 24/7 business?

wouldn't the ones that already operate 24/7 see similar amount of foot-traffic if the competition isn't open 24/7?

 

[humminbird]

Pizza shops had to hire delivery boys
Looks like they have to do the same

 

[bnew]

These fukkers want a handout, fukk them

the idea for developing a technology platform so store owners can facilitate online deliveries is good. for years i thought the TLC should have done that for yellow and livery cabs, a API built by the city with privacy in mind for the customers that businesses can connect to and compete on top of. these data silo's by all these ride-sharing apps that know way too much about people who just want to get from point A to point B needs more privacy focused competition.

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

Adapt to survive or close up shop. That’s how it usually works especially since there will always be threats to your business and livelihood

 

[Amestafuu (Emeritus)]

i don't see a legal case for opposition like cabbies to uber these people are stuck in their ways. offer a competitive service

 

[Nicole0416_718_929_646212]

Bodega owners who tend to exploit the community’s lack of resources and never reinvest in the same community or customers where they set up shop to access wealth, are complaining about being exploited and outsourced by wealthier corporate owners for their lack of investment in the community, where they operate while infringing on the customer base. Interesting paradox.

 

[mattw1313]

“These startup companies offering 10-20 minute grocery delivery will compete directly with our family-run bodegas,” Rodríguez said in a release. “If we don’t take action, thousands of our businesses will close their doors in the next six months, creating additional food deserts and harming New Yorkers’ access to food.”

bold shyt coming from the top symbol of a food desert. people rely on Bodegas and dollar stores for groceries when there are no real supermarkets or they're living too check to check to properly go shopping and stock up

 

[Nicole0416_718_929_646212]

Adapt to survive or close up shop. That’s how it usually works

Bodegas built their store models selling the unhealthiest snacks and packed processed foods; have an issue with people actually being able to order salad prep, vegetables and fruit juices/sodas that don’t contain 99% high fructose corn syrup and sugar. To stock up on items they want and need instead of what they are being forced to get bc the people lack options and availability. As long as these delivery apps don’t discriminate when it comes to the delivery radius of certain neighborhoods and actually hire local community people for grocery delivery and warehouse packaging, I take no issue with it.

These Bodegas are getting the wake up call to expand their offerings from chopped cheese, $15 box of Tide that costs $7.00 at a big box shop, $4 Snapple’s and hostess snacks. Dude is talking about “bbb-buttt we delivered when no one else did” as he fails to disclose the $20-$40 up charge that he taxed poor communities at the height of the pandemic. I need to see the documentation and tac disclosure paperwork on these charitable contributions and free services that Akhi claims he “provided” to the community out of the goodness of his hot hamncheese selling heart. Don’t get me going in on these Asian bodega owners with their 4 to a store unwritten policies.

 

[Piffiztheanswer]

The only victims here are the bodega cats

 

[DonRe]

Bodegas are only in threat in gentrified hoods.

anywhere else in, they will be alright. Most bodegas i know deliver.

Id doubt they get papi and muhammed out the paint. They are a staple.