West Oakland’s only fullscale market may not survive slump
Plunging sales during the second half of the pandemic might permanently shutter West Oakland’s Community Foods Market, once again leaving many of the neighborhood’s residents without an accessible fullscale grocery store.
When Community Foods opened in summer 2019, it was hailed as a visionary store committed to the people in greatest need in West Oakland. Independent and missiondriven, the market took nine years to come to fruition with $15 million in funding from grants, nonprofits and a direct public offering.
In an effort to see its second anniversary, Community Foods Market began a “Save Our Store” campaign Thursday, calling on people to shop frequently now and be entered to win $200 gift cards for future groceries. The goal is to bring 100 more shoppers into the store each day for the next 30 days. If that doesn’t happen — and if there’s no significant outside investment — the market is on pace to close in three months.
“We’re looking at an 11thhour situation in terms of the radical turn our business has taken,” said CEO Brahm Ahmadi.
The pandemic likely reduced spending power in the
neighborhood as people faced job losses and evictions, along with continued hesitation to return to public indoor settings, Ahmadi said. Even though winter’s stayathome order is over and many East Bay residents are rushing back to stores and restaurants, the scene at Community Foods has not changed.
Community Foods saw an initial bump in sales at the start of the pandemic as people stockpiled pantry goods, but business dropped to prepandemic levels by the end of last May. After Thanksgiving, traffic plunged by 28%. Customers’ average spending fell by 30%.
“People who are regular customers who used to buy full shopping carts traded down to hand baskets and now are at the point where they’re checking out with just a few items in their hands: bread, milk and bananas,” Ahmadi said.
Meanwhile, Bay Area grocery prices spiked at the start of the pandemic by almost 7% and have remained high ever since then, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Community Foods’ traffic dipped again in February, Ahmadi felt forced to lay off seven people and reduce the hours for several others in order to keep prices competitive with major grocery chains. Still, he fears budgetconscious shoppers are now traveling farther for grocery chains because of perceived price differences.
“We know the negative impacts of this pandemic have not been distributed equally and are disproportionately hitting neighborhoods like West Oakland,” he said.
Ahmadi has also been fundraising in the background in the hope of investing in marketing, ecommerce and other tools that will help Community Foods grow. It’s possible some of this money will go toward keeping operations alive — but ultimately, if he can’t bring more people to the store, outside investors aren’t likely to furnish funds.
Community Foods has never had the cash reserves to ride out a crisis like the pandemic. Unexpected construction costs — including unusually strong rains that delayed the paving of a parking lot and the discovery of an underground fuel tank — wrecked the market’s
“We know the negative impacts of this pandemic have not been distributed equally and are disproportionately hitting neighborhoods like West Oakland.” Brahm Ahmadi, CEO, Community Foods Market
budget before it even opened.
Leading up to the market’s opening in 2019, residents said Community Foods represented a revival in the neighborhood. A closure would embolden naysayers who say West Oakland can’t support a grocery store, neighborhood resident David Peters told The Chronicle last year during another round of fundraising.
“A lot of us have poured our hopes and dreams into what this store represents and what it could mean not only to us in the neighborhood but what it could represent for people outside the neighborhood,” he said.
Ahmadi knows other organizations are trying to open similarly missiondriven grocery stores across the country. If Community Foods closes, funders may be more likely to pass, he said.
“It’s one of the things that bothers me the most,” he said. “Having a project that is fairly well known, and having that fail is going to hurt any other effort. There’s no doubt about it.”
Community Foods Market. 3105 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. https://mailchi.mp/communityfoodsmarket/saveourstore