Vons vs a Food Desert

Beauty and The Beast

The beauty of California’s Catalina Island beacons tourists to ferry or fly the 26 nautical miles from the mainland, but like any place behind the beauty is a beast.  For many residents, access to affordable fresh groceries has been an ongoing challenge. 

Vons Monopoly Charges

With Vons operating as the only major grocery chain on the island, concerns over a monopoly and high food prices led to a 2005 filing by the California Attorney General's office of a monopoly accusation against the company.  The Attorney General accused Vons of violating federal antitrust laws centered on the state alleging the chain held a monopoly over the island’s residents given the island’s limited grocery options beyond Von’s two stores.

Catalina’s CPG Connection

Santa Catalina Island was originally developed in modern times by the chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Jr.  Wrigley bought a controlling interest in the Santa Catalina Island Company in 1919.  

Fast forward fifty-three years and Wrigley’s son, Philip K. Wrigley created the Catalina Island Conservancy to build on his father’s legacy for the island's future by transferring all the family-owned Catalina Island lands to the Conservancy.

The Conservancy has been a boon for land preservation on the island, but as you can imagine not so much in limiting development and keeping real estate high.  California’s high real estate prices are as relevant on Catalina Island despite its secluded and hard-to-reach locale.  Limited developable land also makes Catalina a challenging place for building a grocery store.

The Stick of Gum that Changed the World

Coincidentally, Catalina by way of Wrigley has a loose connection to the development of the UPC.  Two thousand two hundred and one miles away in Troy, Ohio and less than two years after Wrigley’s son established the Conservancy, an experiment began involving a Marsh grocery store cash register and a stick of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.  This experiment would have massive ramifications for the CPG industry.  The first instance of a UPC on a CPG product occurred on June 26, 1974, in Troy.  2024 will be the fiftieth anniversary of the UPC’s humble beginnings.  The Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit's first UPC pack is now in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Is Catalina a Food Desert? 

UPCs aside, the good folks of Catalina Island have struggled with a lack of access to fair market-priced groceries for years.  The island is only accessible by ferry or airplane.  While the island is not an official “food desert” by federal government standards, it is an actual geographical and topographical desert with limited natural resources (especially water).  As a result, the cost of transporting and procuring fresh food and CPG products remains high.

The Vons Catalina Conundrum

Vons historically operated “store number 2272”, in a unique split of two stores two blocks apart.  The two stores carried complementary departments that if combined into one store would make a single Vons store.  To conduct a full grocery visit, you had to visit both stores.  

The original two-store arrangement was notorious for the complexity of finding anything but also for segmenting locals from tourists.  The locals could spot a tourist by how they traversed the store's narrow aisles.  The aisles were so narrow, that the locals knew a proven scheme to get up and down the aisles efficiently.  Unfortunately for the unacquainted, it was not as obvious and you would have been labeled a “tourist” for traversing the store aisles against the scheme.

Solving a Food Desert

Vons closed the two stores or “store number 2272” on January 29, 2019, relocating to the current and new 24,000-square-foot store the next day.   Store number 3280 on 240 Sumner Avenue was only a few blocks away from the old locations.  It was a seminal moment in Catalina’s history as the island looked like it finally shed its reputation as a food desert.

I recently visited the Catalina Island Conservancy and the new Vons Store.  As I walked up to the new store I noticed the parking lot was full of golf carts, the preferred mode of transportation for most of the island’s residents.  The parking lot made the new store look less like a grocery store and more like a country club.  Inside, the store's prices are noticeably higher versus the mainland, but surprisingly many things were priced the same or close to what I pay at Vons back in San Diego.

The Monopoly Case’s Closure

Ultimately in the California D.A.’s monopoly case, Vons admitted no wrongdoing and agreed to reimburse the attorney general $25,000 for their costs involving the allegations, and $60,000 was provided to the city “to be used for the benefit of consumers who purchased Grocery Store products in Avalon,” per the judgment documents.  Finally, Vons also submitted themselves to a consent decree to release the newer branch store of the two stores on Catalina to any of the competitors who wanted it.  In the end, no one and not any competitors stepped forward for the store.

Catalina Moves Forward 

While Vons now only operates the single, updated store, food access, and affordability remain an issue for many Catalina residents who work in the tourist trade and struggle with the island's high cost of living. Local advocates continue to push for additional measures to ease the burden, such as subsidies for having groceries shipped from the mainland or incentives for other markets to open locations and provide competition.

The situation highlights the challenges of providing essential services like affordable groceries in geographically isolated communities. As Catalina's primary population center moves forward with just one major grocery store once again, residents and visitors alike will be watching to see if Vons' pricing and practices show sufficient improvement in the absence of direct competition.