Whole Foods Acquisitions Impact
Online-bookstore-turned-leading-retailer Amazon.com Inc. purchased the Austin-grown grocery store Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7 billion in August. The merger has brought price cuts to Whole Foods and questions about how the online retailer could affect local food businesses.
According to Junfeng Jiao, an architecture professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a director of the Urban Information Lab, Amazon services such as Amazon Prime will change the way people buy groceries in cities like Austin. Jiao wrote an op-ed column for Texas Perspectives, an opinion service through UT News, earlier this month about how Amazon can use Whole Foods to further promote online shopping with the last major retail business it hasn’t yet fully expanded to: groceries.
Jiao said the shift towards online groceries through services such as Amazon Prime can also affect food deserts in Austin. Food deserts are neighborhoods and areas without access to fresh, healthy food. In 2015, Jiao wrote a paper for the Urban Information Lab exploring the food deserts in Austin and how transportation can affect access to healthy food; they found that among vulnerable populations, or populations in Austin at or near the poverty line or without a car, the availability of transportation can affect access to healthy food.
“One thing from the merger of Whole Foods is we will have a much better distribution network in the whole country, and especially in the Austin area,” he said. “Amazon Prime and Whole Foods will eventually be able to reach a lot of ground in Austin, and that will definitely move the desert, because instead of relying on your own transportation mode, you will receive the food like you receive a package.”
For example, of the more than 400,000 people in Austin living in areas where 40 percent of the population earned less than double the income needed to live, 82 percent could not walk to “good” sources of food, such as grocery stores, while only 52 percent could not walk to “bad” or less healthy food, such as fast food or convenience stores.
“In any given area in the city of Austin, the density of unhealthy food sources is almost double the density of good food sources,” he said. “That means residents of the city of Austin have much accessibility to faster food.”
UT radio-television-film senior Elle Pitcher said she buys her groceries, as well as most of her household products, from Amazon Prime because it saves her time.
“Using Amazon groceries is more practical for me because of my busy schedule,” Pitcher said. “I’m a film student, so I’m constantly on set and running around. As a full time student and employee, it takes too much time out of my day to drive to the nearest grocery store when I could be working and have them delivered on my doorstep.”
Jiao said in his op-ed that, because of its convenience and speed, Amazon could push out grocery stores in neighborhoods, including in the more vulnerable communities, similar to how Netflix and Redbox replaced physical video stores like Blockbuster.
City of Austin Office of Sustainability environmental program coordinator Amanda Rohlich said that Austin has some programs that work to increase availability of healthy food in low-income areas, such as farm stands and and a corner store program through GO! Austin/¡VAMOS! Austin.
However, Rohlich said that suddenly placing a grocery store into a neighborhood can have a destabilizing effect on the community.
“As the retailer moves in, property rates increase, tax rates increase, rent increases and ultimately people can’t afford to live there anymore,” she said. “These increased prices push even more people farther into the suburbs, which is a bigger problem because there are even less retailers available there.
One way for brick-and-mortar grocery stores to successfully compete against online retailers is by fostering a sense of community, Jiao wrote in his op-ed.
“A good grocery store should be able to provide unique, inexpensive, high-quality food choices. And they must adapt to their environments,” he wrote. “In the end, uniqueness, technology adoption, downsizing and fostering a sense of community are the best strategies grocers can use to face the challenges ahead and thrive in the next decade.”
In between classes, homework and her other obligations as a student, UT Austin radio-television-film senior Haley Morales has one more responsibility on which she must spend her time: either taking care of her four-month-old son, Hunter, or finding someone to look after him.
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Morales doesn’t find balancing school and motherhood to be especially difficult. But because of her busy schedule, the most challenging thing is finding childcare. She added that, although there are plenty of resources in Austin to help her, the problem is finding enough time to access these resources.
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“It’s very time-consuming, and I was still going to school while I was pregnant,” she said. “I was going to school and doing homework so I didn’t really have the time. I feel like it would have been helpful if I did have the time.”
Austin and Travis County are rich in resources for parents who are struggling, whether they be low-income, in school or a working single parent. Those who need it can get assistance for necessities ranging from diapers to car seats and even human milk for babies who cannot eat formula due to medical reasons. Morales said she doesn’t think there’s a lack of resources in Austin, but the problem is finding them.
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“It took a lot of research on my part to find those kinds of resources,” Morales said. “I wouldn’t say there’s not enough, maybe if they just had more visibility or were easier to find out about.”
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In addition to resources offered at the local level, the federal government has a number of “safety net” programs to help single parents with children get the essential services they need, according to Patrick Wong, a UT Austin public affairs associate professor who studies poverty and welfare issues. These programs include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, which offers cash on a temporary basis to low-income families; the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, also known as food stamps, which are available for purchasing food for families and individuals living below a certain income level; and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, which helps provide food for pregnant women and children up to five years of age.
Wong said one issue holding back the economic well-being of vulnerable parents is education level: more education could lead to finding a higher-paying job.
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“But that is not the only issue, because when you have young children at home, obviously you need to have support taking care of the children while you are at work,” Wong said. “Therefore, [the second part] of the fundamental solution must be an infrastructural support for working parents.”
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This infrastructural support would include childcare assistance and maternal leave.
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“Right now, most low-income parents are in jobs that do not offer paid leave for sick children or for pregnancy,” Wong said. “That is an important dimension that needs to change in order to make it possible for these single parents to get ahead economically.”
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Living in a city also makes a difference for this group of people: Wong said that compared to rural areas, an urban setting allows for easier physical access to these resources, such as doctors that accept Medicaid or benefit eligibility offices where low-income parents can apply for food stamps. However, the cost of living is higher in cities such as Austin, while the amount of benefits available are uniform across the state.
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“The effective resources that an Austin parent obtains is probably relatively less than the resource level that a rural Texas family can obtain,” Wong said. “From the financial side, it’s probably a little bit worse for Austin families.”
Austin does offer some options for parents unable to afford this high cost of living. An organization called LifeWorks offers housing to young homeless parents between the ages of 16 and 22, according to LifeWorks case manager Morgan Miles.
Miles said that, by helping the young parents at a vulnerable stage, they are also helping impact the lives of their children.
“The desire to have your own place gives you the confidence to be able to raise your child,” Miles said. “It’s huge for someone to tell you, ‘hey, I believe in you, you can do this, we’re going to help.’”
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Miles, who studied social work at UT Austin, said she is passionate about helping a group of people that is often ignored.
“I believe every person should have the dignity to be able to live how they would like to,” Miles said, “and to do so with respect from people around them.”
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Miles said the Young Parent Program at LifeWorks is there to help these young parents navigate the systems and resources available to them and, if need be, advocate for them in order to get those resources faster.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” Miles said. “There’s a lot of people who care about you who have never even met you. Ask for help and you might be surprised at what you are led to.”
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In August, Hurricane Harvey destroyed homes across the Texas Gulf Coast and flooded the Greater Houston area. As of September 1, around 185,000 homes had been destroyed and over 40,000 people were in shelters, according to ABC News.
In addition to the humans affected by this disaster, their pets have suffered as well. In the aftermath of Harvey, Austin-based animal shelter Austin Pets Alive! has saved around 5,000 animals from the Houston and coastal areas, and they are continuing to rescue more. This has caused a significant increase in animals under APA!’s care, and APA! marketing manager Lindsey Picard said they are always looking for more people to adopt and foster these animals. Due to this influx of animals rescued from Harvey, APA!’s foster program has tripled in size, and in September they adopted out twice as many animals as in an average month. However, since their rescue efforts are ongoing, APA! wants to adopt out and place into foster homes as many animals as possible.
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This summer, concerned citizens filled the halls of the Texas Capitol, testifying passionately over controversial subjects from insurance coverage of abortions to the “bathroom bill” aimed at transgender people. Meanwhile, city officials and activists from cities and towns across the state gathered in Austin to fight for an entirely different category of living things that call urban landscapes like Austin home: trees.
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During the spring 2017 legislative session, the Texas Legislature filed seven bills regarding a city’s authority to regulate tree removal. The bills ranged from prohibiting cities from restricting the removal of trees on private land to reducing a city’s authority to charge fees to residents and developers who remove trees without replanting, also known as tree mitigation fees.
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Although none of the spring legislation made much progress, a bill of the latter variety, HB 7, was passed during the summer’s special legislative session called by governor Greg Abbott. Abbott, who has been outspoken in the past about Austin’s tree preservation ordinances, specifically included tree regulations in the special session’s agenda.
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The bill, which goes into effect on Dec. 1, would require municipalities that charge tree mitigation fees to provide credits from the city to go towards the cost of tree mitigation.
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According to the bill, residential property owners in existing single-family homes could receive a credit for the entire fee, while land developers building new residential buildings could receive a credit for 50 percent of the fee.
In Austin, the city expects that trees be preserved during development on private land unless the tree prevents use of or access to the property, Austin city arborist Keith Mars said. If protecting a tree from being removed is impossible, the next step is to plant back the trees that were removed.
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“We have prioritized protecting big, old trees because we know they can’t just be replaced overnight, it takes generations to get those values back,” said Mars, who testified on behalf of the city of Austin during the special session. “That’s why we prioritize preservation first, replanting second, and then when you don’t or can’t preserve, when you don’t have enough room to plant everything back, and you still have required tree mitigation, that’s when a fee is required.”
The common measurement of a tree is its “diameter at breast height,” or its diameter in inches 4.5 feet above the ground. In regards to Austin’s tree mitigation fees, each inch is valued at $200, which is collected by the city and redistributed to tree programs on public property, Mars said.
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One such program is the Urban Forest Grant, a program that funds projects such as tree planting, education and tree disease control. The Urban Forest Grant is funded by these tree mitigation fees through the Urban Forest Replenishment Fund, a fund established in 2002 in order to satisfy the city’s mitigation requirements, according to Jason Traweek, urban forestry resource manager for the city of Austin.
According to Traweek, HB7 could cause reduced funding for the Urban Forest Grant by an estimated 35 percent, which will lead to less funding available for urban forestry projects.
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Due to the reduction of funds Urban Forest Grant because of HB7, Austin will be able to replant less trees in the long-term, said Rich DePalma, a board member at Austin non-profit TreeFolks.
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“When you fly over Austin, you see a tremendous amount of green,” Mars said. “Given the extent of development in Austin, it has the potential to completely reshape what our community looks like.”
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The reduction of trees would, among other things, impact the quality of life in the city, decrease property values and increase energy bills and create more demand on the electrical system due to a lack of shade from the trees, according to Mars.
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“There could be some pretty major consequences of indiscriminate tree removal across the city,” he said. “That’s why you see not just Austin, but cities of all sizes and all political spectrums in the state that have chosen to protect trees in their community and prioritize tree preservation. It is very common now across the country to see that type of recognition for those valuable services that trees provide.”
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By providing these services, trees are part of an often-overlooked “green infrastructure,” DePalma said.
“[TreeFolks] really focuses on educating the greater community, as well as legislators, on the actual cost associated with removing trees,” he said. “Our cities are growing at a much quicker rate than anything else … and so we have more people coming into our metropolitan areas throughout the state, and yet we’re losing that green infrastructure, we’re losing the air quality and water quality, we’re losing the stormwater mitigation that trees provide.”
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The bill wouldn’t only adversely affect Austin; DePalma, who advocated against the tree bills during the special session along with Mars, said he talked to San Antonio mayor Ron Nirenberg in the Capitol about the importance of the urban tree canopy in maintaining good air quality.
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San Antonio’s three-year average for 2015, 2016 and 2017 of ground-level ozone, which can contribute to respiratory problems, is 74 parts per billion in the atmosphere, which is out of compliance with the EPA’s standard of 70 ppb.
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Trees have a complicated relationship with ozone; while trees emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can contribute to ozone formation, tree species that emit low levels of VOCs can help reduce urban ozone levels.
DePalma said the bills brought together different people from across the state who advocate for urban forests in Texas.
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“Having to build that relationship and to be able to start exchanging information was a big win,” he said. “I don’t think that was the intention from the governor’s office and from the representatives … but it was the silver lining in what was a very aggressive attack on what we value in central Texas and throughout the state, which is the look and feel of our communities based upon the heritage trees that we have surrounding us. It’s what makes us Hill Country here in central Texas.”
