The high price of groceries on Gottingen

It’s a long way to the nearest grocery store, so some residents make financial or health compromises to get by

Jerome Wayne MacDonald opens the door to his freezer and lifts out a small plastic package. He gently rips into it and finds that it’s a purple popsicle. Not the orange one he had hoped for.

Popsicles are a luxury MacDonald allows himself. “You got to treat yourself once in awhile,” he says.

At a convenience store, it costs $1.25 to purchase just one, while at a major grocery chain an individual popsicle works out to about 45 cents. 

“The mark-ups are atrocious,” he says of the price difference. Yet he sometimes splurges because there’s no major grocery store on or within a short walking distance of Gottingen Street.

MacDonald, 66, lives on a fixed income at Sunrise Manor on Gottingen. The Truro-born man, who made a career laying bricks and travelling the country, has been a tenant in the government-subsidized building for four years. The rent is cheap and, for an extra $10 a month, he gets cable.

But stocking his pantry requires carefully planned trips to the grocery store and a visit to the food bank every four weeks. “I’m on a disability pension. I get ‘X’ amount of dollars a month … so you just have to be mindful of where you put your money,” he says.

MacDonald was recently diagnosed with Pick’s disease, a rare form of dementia that can affect mobility, in addition to memory and personality.

Not an isolated situation

MacDonald isn’t alone in his struggle to find affordable groceries close to home. Despite the commercial boom happening in the north end street, accessing food is still a daily challenge for some residents.

“There are so many people like that who need to have better food for their mental and physical wellness,” says Norman Greenberg, who sits as a director on the board of the Community Carrot Co-op, a project initiated by concerned locals that aims to provide residents of the north end with competitively priced groceries.

The project received $115,000 in start-up funding at the beginning of the year, as part of a national competition funded by Aviva Insurance Canada. Organizers planned to sign a lease in September and begin renovations in October, but the project has been delayed.

Food desert

The street has been without a grocery store since Sobeys closed its doors at the corner of Cunard and Gottingen Streets in 1987. Over the years, the street, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, has been classified as a “food desert.” Coined by policy makers, the term refers to low-income urban areas where residents are unable to purchase healthy, affordable food.

There is a store on Gottingen Street that sells fresh produce, but MacDonald doesn’t shop there. “It’s all organics and stuff like that. I don’t want to pay $3 for a tomato. And that’s what it costs, for a friggin’ tomato,” he says.

Today, the nearest chain store is over two kilometres away, on Windsor Street. That’s a $16 cab ride for MacDonald and other residents at Sunrise Manor. “That’s a lot of popsicles,” he jokes. City buses run almost constantly on the street, but on Sept. 30, public transit became a less attractive option because bus rates went up by 25 cents a trip.

Instead, MacDonald spends almost two hours walking with his personal cart  to and from a grocery store so that he can spend the money he saves on transportation to buy more food.

But it’s not easy, he says, despite being a former avid cyclist.

Changing neighbourhood

MacDonald describes the new condos and businesses that have been opening their doors on Gottingen Street as “upscale jumps” and, while he views the change as positive, he wonders if there will still be room for a project like the Community Carrot Co-op.

According to project manager Gwen McCauley, the co-operative’s board of directors has been attempting to secure a home for the co-op for approximately nine months.

“We are currently in hard negotiations on two different properties which would be suitable. These are the 10th and 11th places that we’ve evaluated, assessed and negotiated on,” writes McCauley in an email.

“Finding a suitable location has been a much greater challenge than we’d originally thought,”  McCauley says.

Several times, the board has come close to securing a location,  she says. But each time, the deal has fallen through.

In one case, the landlord of a potential property rented the space to a restaurant. In another, negotiations lasted for four months before the property owner said he was worried about having a grocery store in his building, writes McCauley.

‘Committed to Gottingen’

“We have a variety of very valid reasons for this process having taken so long. And yet, that doesn’t diminish the frustration and ongoing challenge for all involved,” she writes.

Still, McCauley says the Community Carrot Co-op board of directors is “committed to Gottingen Street as the core of our service area, which means we only have a few short blocks in which to find a suitable location.”

Back at Sunrise Manor, MacDonald  says he hopes the project finds a home nearby. “It really is an inconvenience that there’s not a grocery store,” he says.

While he’s been talking, MacDonald’s popsicle has melted and a drop threatens to fall. “Don’t worry about that,” he says as it plops to the ground.

Credits: Story and multimedia by Julielee Stitt.

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