Giant Eagle’s executive vice president of supply chain transformation and retail innovation, Graham Watkins, addresses the audience at the meeting.
On January 25, Just Harvest organized a meeting that some 65 residents of East Liberty and Larimer attended to discuss the impact of the Shakespeare Street store closing. They spoke with four Giant Eagle representatives, who also delved into corporate plans for what the new Market District store will provide.
Since the July closure, residents of nearby underserved neighborhoods have struggled with healthy food and grocery access. WIC recipients have had nowhere nearby to use their benefits. The new store isn’t due to be completed until two years from now.
To prepare for this gap in healthy food access, Just Harvest has been working for the past two years on healthy food access solutions with nearby neighborhood organizations. They include the Kingsley Association, Larimer Consensus Group, and the registered community organization for East Liberty Village Collaborative who helped organize and host this meeting. In the past year, our staff have helped to build awareness of – and document the deficiencies of – Giant Eagle’s interim offerings. These comprise a community drop-off location for online orders, free direct delivery to online shoppers (see the map on this page), and a mobile market.
Map of Giant Eagle’s free delivery zone in the East End of Pittsburgh
(click to enlarge)
Of these options, our conversations with community members indicated that they find free direct delivery the most useful. But many residents are still not aware of this option. And older shoppers are often uncomfortable with or unable to navigate Giant Eagle’s website to place their order.
As our executive director, Ken Regal, said in his opening remarks at the meeting:
Through surveys and in-depth interviews, focus group meetings and chats on the
street corners, we’ve learned about the help many seniors and others need with
physical access to getting their groceries, as well as guidance in how to use new
ways of doing your food shopping online. We’ve heard that parents of young
children need places they can use their WIC benefits, and we’ve heard that people
without bank accounts or credit cards need solutions that work for them. We
learned that one size doesn’t fit all. And we’re still learning.”
Next steps
We are creating a step-by-step user-friendly guide about free Giant Eagle grocery delivery and how to order online. Just Harvest will continue to work with interested organizations and individuals on creating long-term community food access solutions. These will likely focus on weekly grocery drop-offs at senior centers and low-income housing buildings.
Encouraging elected officials who represent these neighborhoods to engage in these conversations is important. County Councilman Dewitt Walton attended the January public meeting and asked Giant Eagle about the construction jobs the new store might bring. (Giant Eagle’s senior director of corporate communications, Dan Donovan, said that was the domain of their construction partner, Echo Realty.) Staff from City Councilmember Erika Strassburger’s office also attended the meeting.
Audience members were very interested in a commitment from Giant Eagle to hire from their neighborhoods for the new store personnel. That will be the subject of the next community meeting, which Just Harvest is starting to plan. This meeting will also address the pricing and types of products residents would like to see the new store carry.
We thank Rev. Canady at the Rodney St. Missionary Baptist Church for cohosting and live-streaming the January meeting, lifting up the need for healthy food access in East Liberty and Larimer.
We look forward to continued work with our community partners on this issue.
Want be part of this work or make sure you get notice of the next meeting? Contact our grassroots organizer Dana Dolney at [email protected] or (412) 643-2349.
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