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Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

I can't find a grocery chain that isn't run like crap in my area anymore.

I may start going to farmers' markets this year.

Unfortunately the dollar stores are making life hard on the smaller rural grocery stores, and Dollar General in particular is spreading like kudzu in my state.

They exist (e.g Wegmans, HEB). None of them are public companies. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.

Also Publix, the largest employee owned company in the US.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/employee-owned-publix-lesso... (Employee-Owned Publix Offers a Lesson for Other Supermarket Chains)

> One chain that stands above the rest is Publix Super Markets. The Florida grocer has net margins (net income divided by sales) of 7% to 8%. Compare that with margins of just 2% for the two biggest grocery chains, Kroger (ticker: KR) and Albertsons (ACI). And Publix earned $2.6 billion in the first nine months of 2021, more than Kroger’s $2.1 billion, despite generating a third of Kroger’s sales.

> employee owned company in the US

Hardly a co-op: “The [Jenkins] family owns an estimated 20% stake in Publix, and its wealth is estimated at $8.8 billion, based on the latest Forbes magazine tally. Publix was founded in 1930 by George Jenkins when he was 23.”

Barron’s article on archive: https://archive.vn/zIy6g

Never said it was. High quality grocer experience, employee owned, and is more profitable than Kroger and Albertsons. Would it be better as a coop? Shrugs, it’s pretty good for what it is.

If you want to start a (competing or not) coop, I encourage you to do so.

If one guy owns 20% of it, that doesn't seem to jive very well with saying it's "employee owned".

If he's an employee, and at least 50% of the company is owned by employees, it checks out.

At the point where you own 20% of the company you're not really an employee; you have more control over the company than the company does over you.

The rest of employees (not investors) hold the remaining 80%.

If even half of them are bothered enough, their summary 40% of ownership will comfortably outweigh the single 20% share.

This, of course, assumes that no one else affiliated with the big share owner has a comparably large share (like 10%). If a small clique owns, say, 70% among them, it's a different ballgame.

Considering the elder Jenkins is a billionaire many times over, I’d wager my money it’s a lot closer to 70% than 20%

I kinda have a feeling 40% of the employees were not thrilled when several hundred of thousands of dollars were funneled via a PAC to causes such as outlawing medical marijuana, and getting Ron DeSantis elected.

Is Publix nice? They don’t have them in my area. Wegmann’s are great.

In fancy areas, Publix is like Wegmans. In less fancy areas, it’s less Wegman-y.

Wegmans is the same way in their hometown. The new ones are in very targeted demographic areas and like a circa 2001 Whole Foods before Amazon made them dumb.

Step up from Krogers… but more minimally acceptable rather than actually nice.

Kroger doesn't even physically exist in the Austin market anymore. H-E-B basically drove them out of the market years ago.

H-E-B and Whole Foods dominate the Austin market. WF because they originated here and there are many locations. H-E-B has a cult-like following in Texas, and are a tier above many national stores (Safeway/etc). They pay well, don't treat their employees like they're disposable, and their in-house brand is oftentimes better than the name brand. H-E-B even is known for being one of the first responders to natural disaster that happen in Texas, they even have their own disaster relief response team. Each store is slightly different in their offers, as they tend to cater them to what people in the area prefer. The list just goes on and on.

Why can't each city have a government provided indoor marketplace with shelf space folks could lease, otherwise fill it with other goods without any profit margin?

I think the government should provide most services everyone uses at cost, and have folks innovate/compete on top of that. Otherwise the services devolve into middlemen skimming off the top without adding value.

If something can turn into rent seeking, have the government provide it too.

You seem to assume that the government is efficient and incorruptible. I have not seen evidence that is the case.

You can see a great example of this actually working in Seattle's Pike Place Market, they're governed by an NGO established by a public vote.

Been to a farmer's market? At least around here, a lot of them are run by local governments. E.g.: https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/cs/events/farmers.asp

How is that evidence it's efficient and incorruptible?

for one, there's a limited number of stalls. It certainly wouldn't be shocking if whoever bribed the government coordinator the most got one of the stalls or if people the coordinators closest friends got priority access to the stalls etc...

I don't know the ideal solution. It might be more fair if there was a raffle for stalls each week. Instead we see the same people in the same stalls. Curious how a new farmer gets in to the market. Do they offer more money than someone already there?

Are you trying to claim that farmers' markets are terrible dens of iniquity? If so, please provide data.

No, I'm only trying to claim that a government run farmers market is not incorruptible nor likely would it be any more fair.

Interestingly the link above is not to a government run farmers market. It's to a a government site that then links to a non-government, non-profit organization. So that farmers market is not government run

Thank goodness you have so energetically attacked the straw man that there is some kind of organization that is incorruptible. We are all richer for it.

The government doesn't need to be particularly efficient or incorruptible to provide a covered marketplace. It's basically touchless.

What does "touchless" mean? Who cleans the place up each day? Who maintains the building? (cleaning the toilets, fixing broken doors and windows, and other general maintenance) Who decides which iof the 95 people who want a booth get one of the 20 available spaces? Who polices that the items sold are safe? etc.. etc..

This is a weird list of FUD for the kind of basic public amenity that even borderline failed states manage to provide.

If this was a missile base or a oil refinery, maybe there'd be something to consider here. But we're talking about one of the oldest forms of public marketplace; plenty of marketplaces don't even have toilets or windows. My local one doesn't.

Governments in many countries provide good services to their citizens. The US has one party that just tries to dismantle and make government programs worse on purpose so they can personally pay less taxes.

Sounds to me like you're describing farmer's markets or farmer's co-ops. If your government is failing to provide these services the only alternative is to buy land and do it yourself, but you may even get pushback to that too depending on how you want to structure the co-op. As far as I understand though in the USA there's not really legal barriers to structuring a co-op.

In Taiwan we do have lots of these kinds of things you describe, especially outside of Taipei. Seems every time I motorcycle through a smaller village I always see a farmer's co-op. I'm not sure if the government set them up or not, but I'm pretty sure the government built the ubiquitous enormous covered basketball court that I see in every tribal township that functions as a playground, market, and wedding venue.

An indoor marketplace with shelf space you can lease is actually the business model of most large grocery chains. [1] Food manufacturers rent shelf space to display and sell their products. But these stores are run by corporations, not by the government.

1. For instance see: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/22/13707022/grocery-store-slotti...

A model more like a credit union might work or some cooperative. Costco is fairly close where they have a very thin profit margin and excellent supply chain management.

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