Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced that The Peninsula in Hunts Point will be the second site selected for New York City's new municipal grocery store program, making it the first in the Bronx. The 20,000-square-foot store is expected to open in 2027 as part of the city's effort to make groceries more affordable for New Yorkers.
I've been reporting on food and affordability for NPR for our new series What's Eating America. And in talking to people, business owners and experts, I've picked up some strategies to help keep my family's food costs in check without sucking all the fun out of eating. Keep an eye out for those stories.
Polymarket, the cryptocurrency-based prediction market, announced on Tuesday it would be opening New York City's first free grocery store, seemingly a nod to the mayor's signature policy. In a statement the firm said it hoped to empower every New Yorker to achieve food security for good, and that it had donated $1m to the Food Bank for NYC. The eponymous Polymarket store, however, will apparently only run as a temporary pop-up, and despite supposedly opening on 12 February its location has yet to be announced.
I think the question you're asking, and it's a really important one, is while we're asking Americans to reconsider what they're eating, are we actually asking Americans - especially those who are living on the margins - are we asking them to spend more on their diet? And the answer to that is 'no.
Nestle says the Trump administration's efforts to withhold SNAP benefits from millions of Americans has made clear how fragile our economy is: "We have 42 million people in this country 16 million of them children who can't rely on a consistent source of food from day to day and have to depend on a government program that provides them with benefits that really don't cover their food needs, only cover part of their food needs."
