Editorial: Chicago will survive without both Jewel and Mariano’s. Food deserts are more complicated.

Grocery stores attract outsized political attention across the country, and nowhere more than in Chicago.

On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to scrutinize the planned, more-than-$20 billion megamerger of two huge operators of U.S. grocery stores — Albertsons, the parent company of Chicago’s ubiquitous Jewel-Osco stores, and Kroger, the operator of the Mariano’s brand. The merger has attracted particular attention due to soaring food costs. It’s opposed by labor unions, which fear consolidation and job loss, independent operators who fear being squeezed out, and many customers who worry about less choice and yet higher prices at the checkout.

As scrutinized companies typically do at such hearings, the parties argued that efficiencies and increased bargaining power would make their businesses more cost-effective and potentially even lower prices for consumers.

They also argued that, even when combined, the companies would still rank behind Costco, Amazon and Walmart in total grocery revenue. Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen even pledged that price cuts would begin “immediately” after the consolidation. We’ll see if he is man of his word.

In Chicago, where this issue burns as hot as a rotisserie chicken, there also have been fights over leading chains abandoning their stores on the South Side. Whole Foods, now a subsidiary of Amazon, received the wrath of Mayor Lori Lightfoot in April after it announced it intended to close stores in Englewood and Lincoln Park (a savvy if disingenuous pairing).

More bad news followed in April, when Auburn Gresham residents found out that their local Aldi grocery store, located at 7627 S. Ashland Ave., had quietly shuttered, heightening concerns about broad swaths of the city having no convenient access to stores selling fresh food.

The Whole Foods closure was especially galling because the 18,000-square-foot store, part of a larger real estate project, was supported in part by a $10.7 million tax increment financing subsidy, approved by the City Council in 2014. The store was opened by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Whole Foods Market co-CEO Walter Robb in 2016 with much fanfare. Whole Foods Market hosted its version of a ribbon-cutting, dubbed a “Bread-Breaking Ceremony,” and there was much speechifying about social good.

Emanuel said the store represented “a new future for the Englewood community.”

Demonstrably, that future did not last and food desert problems continued in Englewood and other neighborhoods lacking in investment.

What do all of these grocery store conflicts have in common? Plenty of political posturing without necessarily solving genuine problems.

All of the above companies are for-profit businesses that cannot be expected to operate if they are unprofitable. And, in some cases, businesses also conclude that the rates of theft, or “shrinkage,” in their stores are what renders them unprofitable (see Michigan Avenue for numerous such examples).

In the case of Whole Foods, the disaster in Englewood was a case study in how government often offers capital support for worthy projects but does not typically offer operational subsidy, which then can undermine the public cost already sunk into a project. Transportation projects — billions of dollars in new stations but not support for running enough trains — often suffer from the same governmental blind spot.

Since the reality of the exit of these national chains hit, city officials rightly have recalibrated and looked at more locally focused and cooperative entities, and even direct involvement in ensuring that the people of Englewood have access to fresh food.

That is a lesson learned and a reminder that development subsidies often do not result in subsequent successful operation. Such deals have to be looked at carefully so that public money isn’t wasted. In the case of the Aldi and Whole Foods debacles, it appears either nobody worked through the projections, or circumstances like the pandemic created a new and more difficult reality.

Private businesses, though, do not have a right to a monopoly and that’s why the Senate was right to ask questions about the merger of two such colossal players in a single industry.

On its face, it seems to us that shoppers in most Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs will have plenty of other choices, including Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Target, Meijer, The Fresh Market and a variety of smaller, local players. And it’s worth noting that many fans of Robert Mariano’s chain became less enthusiastic about the stores, which once were a pleasure to visit, once Kroger took over and eliminated much of what had made them special.

Hopefully, a variety of new, local operators will be able to acquire some prominent real estate, as was the case when the Dominick’s chain ceased operations in 2013, freeing up many stores in prime spots.

Clearly, these two chains combined as one will need to divest some of its locations. And the new company will have a moral obligation to ensure those stores do not sit empty or become blighted due to anti-competitive practices.

But let’s be clear about the big lesson here: Using public money to subsidize the build-out of grocery stores doesn’t make sense without more certainty that they will be viable and profitable on a day-to-day basis.

Chicagoland will survive the Albertsons-Kroger merger. But the challenge of ensuring all Chicagoans have access to fresh food remains.

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