This US city only has one supermarket for 45,000 people. New legislation seeks to fix that

Big grocery can use anti-competitive clauses to block other stores from entering a market. Rhode Island is the second state to ban that practice Jeannine Johansen remembers the halcyon days of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, when so many of its steep streets were punctuated by grocery stores: Almacs, A&P, Piggly Wiggly and Star Market. In the blizzard of 1978, “everybody went to Fernandes [Produce] because Stop & Shop was too far, and all the roads were closed, so we had to walk”, said the native Woonsocketer. These days, Woonsocket is down to one full-service supermarket: a solitary Price Rite serving 45,000 residents, 37% of them food insecure, perched at the top of a hill in a strip mall at the edge of the city. A nearby Dollar General offers frozen meat and packaged foods. Locals with cars (18% of Woonsocket residents have no vehicle) might travel farther afield, beyond Woonsocket’s borders, to Shaw’s or Aldi in search of deals. Meanwhile, every week about 300 families shop for free produce and pantry staples at a bus-accessible marketplace hosted by community non-profit Connecting for Children and Families, where Johansen volunteers – although the need is much greater than organizer