Government subsidized groceries seems like something that was already solved by food stamps. Having the government run entire grocery stores at a loss seems like a worse implementation of the same thing.

I guess it's nice for the voters who are too rich to qualify for food stamps, but in that case it would have been equivalent and simpler to just make the food stamps more universal (remove means testing).

If you really want something different to food stamps, India's subsidized canteens seem like a much more interesting idea: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/inside-indias...