Agribusiness Atlas 2026
For millions of households in the United States, putting food on the table has become a daily struggle. Meanwhile, a handful of powerful suppliers dominate everyday staples such as eggs, soft drinks, beef, chocolate. By doing so, they reap enormous profits. One possible solution: public-sector stores that treat food not as a commodity but as a public good to make healthy, affordable food accessible to everyone. This idea could help reshape the food system.
New York City has been hit particularly hard by inflation. Food prices rose by 56.2 per cent between 2012 and 2023. As a result, more than 1.5 million, nearly one in five New Yorkers, are food insecure. More than 40 per cent of families cannot afford their weekly groceries. A February 2026 poll found that 74 per cent of New York families with children had faced a stark choice: put healthy food on the table and feed their children well, or pay the rent or energy costs.
These figures point to a profound market failure: an industry that cannot serve the very communities on its doorstep. But New York, as the United States' largest urban market, is not only a hotspot of the crisis but also a potential testing ground for solutions. The idea of public-sector groceries struck a chord with voters in New York during Zohran Mamdani's successful mayoral race. The newly elected mayor has proposed a network of publicly owned groceries selling essentials at cost price, with no profit motive. Funding would come from higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest residents. More than two-thirds of New Yorkers support this idea.
One public-sector model could inspire the project in New York and beyond: the military commissary system, known as DeCA, funded entirely by the Department of Defense and serving more than 8 million military service members and their families. It saves them nearly 2 billion US dollars annually on essentials. DeCA operates more than 235 stores nationwide. Measured by sales volumes, DeCA ranks among the 20 biggest retailers. Its scale gives it enormous leverage over distributors and manufacturers, allowing it to secure lower wholesale prices. Public funds cover all operating costs, wages, utilities, administration, IT, and rent. In return, commissaries must price their products at least 23.7 per cent below market rates on average. Commissaries rank among the most popular supermarkets nationwide because they do two things well: they stock what people need and want, and they keep prices low.
This shows that public-sector groceries can work. Drawing on DeCA's success, advocates can lay down clear ground rules. Planners must do what the private market has failed to do: keep prices low. To achieve affordability, it is necessary to track the cost of everyday essentials such as milk, meat, butter, bread, and other pantry staples. It is therefore necessary to design a strategy that consistently undercuts the market. And scale matters, too. Stores must be large enough to meet demand and strong enough to negotiate with powerful suppliers. The food industry is not a free market but a system shaped by power. Scale determines who pays, and how much. Public groceries must be built to win.
But governance matters just as much. Public-sector groceries must remain publicly owned and operated, with strong community oversight. This keeps pricing and procurement accountable to the public, and gives public agencies time to build the real expertise needed to run stores effectively. Outsourcing to private contractors, by contrast, locks in dependency and keeps prices tied to profit rather than need.
To succeed, public-sector groceries would also require sustained public investment. These ongoing operational subsidies cover core costs that private retailers usually finance through margins of 25 to 35 per cent. The more they cut prices for consumers, the more public support they will need. Crucially, the stores must be open to all, not means-tested. In the United States, programmes for the poor quickly become poor programmes. Public transport, libraries, and the postal service offer better models: they work because they serve everyone.
Done right, public groceries could reshape more than prices. They can reverse the race to the bottom on wages and working conditions, forcing private retailers to raise standards. They are no substitute for living wage laws, but where those are absent, they could upend the status quo, in which a significant proportion of shop workers across the United States rely on public assistance, with 75 per cent facing food insecurity, and 14 per cent having faced homelessness.
Public-sector groceries could also transform what ends up on the shelves. By sourcing food according to clear ethical standards, they could ensure that affordable food does not come at the expense of quality, safety, or ethics. Large public institutions have already demonstrated that healthy, sustainable, and fairly produced food can be sourced at scale, a point trade unions endorse. With the right frameworks, public stores could deliver premium-quality products at low prices.
The growing popularity of the idea of public groceries reflects two simple truths: the affordability crisis is real, and people want solutions now. After years of inflation, the private sector has failed to provide affordable, abundant, and convenient good food. Public groceries offer a different path, one that treats food not as a commodity, but as a public good. That would make the right to food something more than a slogan and good food genuinely accessible to all.
A handful of corporations dominate our food system, setting prices, profiting from crises, and driving relentless pressure on the environment, farmers, and consumers alike. The Agribusiness Atlas 2026 traces how this concentration of power took hold, and charts the political pathways toward a fairer food system built around the common good.
