These massive retailers are now leaving low income areas, leaving residents to struggle after closures begin to create a food desert.
Residents in New Mexico have been left struggling to find reliable food options after abrupt store closures created a food desert, reports The US Sun.
Local officials slammed Walmart and Walgreens for leading residents to turn to food pantries after exiting a low-income area in Albuquerque.
Over one year ago, a Walmart in the eastern part of Albuquerque shut down, and since then a nearby Walgreens and Family Dollar have also closed.
Other supermarket chains are in no rush to fill the vacant storefronts, leaving residents to find alternative options for fresh food.
Food pantries in the area are especially feeling the strain, and volunteers say they don’t know how much longer they can patch the holes in the community.
“It’s just amazing to see how they run to these tables and in just a short matter of time, it’s gone,” Pastor Joanne Landry, who runs the nonprofit Compassion Services Center, told local NBC affiliate KOB in March.
“A lot of people, they need food.”
District 6 City Councilor Nichole Rogers also noticed the critical needs and said the closures left a “void” in her district in an exclusive interview with The U.S. Sun.
She said poor access to produce can have a “ripple effect” on the health of the community.
“So it’s a top priority to get some fresh food here as soon as possible,” she said.
For Rogers, the most immediate solution is urging grocery brands to sell their property to the local government at a fair price.
That way, she can set up farmers’ markets and food co-ops where groceries can be subsidized and sold at a fair price.
However, she said the supermarkets have priced their properties so high that the city can’t make an offer.
“Walmart’s holding out for the highest bidder, which is, you know, sad,” Rogers said.
“I wish they would just sell to the city so that we would have more of a say in what happens.”
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Also Read: Giant Restaurant Now Makes An Unexpected Closure in South Carolina
Other Economy News Today
Another EV company now announces unexpected layoffs after pulling out of several markets due to a plunge in projected growth.
BP has cut over a tenth of the workforce in its electric vehicle charging business and pulled it out of several markets after a bet on rapid growth in commercial EV fleets didn’t pay off, company sources said.
The changes at BP Pulse are part of CEO Murray Auchincloss’s efforts to focus on the British company’s most profitable segments as it battles investor doubts over its plan to shift away from oil and gas to low-carbon energy, reports CNBC.
BP Pulse reduced the number of countries it operates in from 12 to four in recent months, focusing now on the United States, Britain, Germany and China, where it expects the fastest growth in the EV market, BP told Reuters.
As a result, the division axed over 100 jobs in recent months, or over 10% of its global workforce of 900, with many employees being moved into other divisions and only a handful leaving the company, the sources said.
BP did not comment on the exact numbers of jobs that were cut.
The move comes as automakers across the world tighten their belts amid a slower than expected uptake of EVs.
Tech publication Electrek reported on Monday that U.S. EV pioneer Tesla would lay off more than 10% of its workforce.
EV charging, however, remains one of BP’s key growth engines.
BP had over 29,000 charging points globally at the end of 2023, compared with 22,000 a year earlier, it said in its annual report.
It aims to have 100,000 points by 2030.
“Our EV ambitions have not changed,” BP said.
The changes at BP Pulse are “a step towards ensuring that we can execute our goals with even greater precision and effectiveness”.
BP last May also shut down its home EV charging business.
The company now focuses mostly on fast charging hubs.
The company says it expects returns from its EV charging and convenience stores operations to exceed 15% and create $1.5 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by 2025.
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Also Read: A Massive Grocery Brand Now Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
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