New York City’s Groceries to Go program was designed around a relatively simple idea: Give food-insecure New Yorkers purchasing power and let existing grocery stores handle the shopping.
The program provides eligible New Yorkers with monthly grocery credits that can be used online for pickup or delivery from participating supermarkets and specialty grocers across the city. But the program has become the subject of controversy just as Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pursuing a much more ambitious plan to establish city-owned grocery stores.
At the heart of the recent controversy is the program’s private technology and delivery partner, Mercato, and allegations from participating independent grocers that they have not been paid for orders fulfilled through the program. This comes as the program has been expanded and funded to the tune of $75 million in taxpayer funds.
How Groceries to Go works
Groceries to Go is a city-funded food-access program operated through Mercato, an online grocery platform. Participants receive monthly credits that can be used to purchase food and beverages from more than 300 full-service and specialty grocery stores on the platform. The credits can also cover delivery charges, service fees, tips and applicable taxes.
The program is not intended to replace SNAP. Instead, it provides an additional source of purchasing power for a targeted population.
Eligibility is narrower than simply being a low-income New Yorker. According to the city, participants must be New York City residents, members of NYC Health + Hospitals’ NYC Care program and meet additional eligibility requirements.
City health materials identify food insecurity and a diagnosis of diabetes or hypertension as part of the program’s target population. The program also has a specific nutritional component. Participants receive a 50% discount on fresh fruits and vegetables, with savings of up to $30 per month.
Earlier city documents specified monthly grocery credits of $110 for individuals and $270 for households of three or more. In other words, Groceries to Go is less a grocery-store program than a food-access and nutrition program that uses the existing grocery infrastructure.
Why Is the Groceries to Go Program Controversial?
The National Supermarket Association reported to the NYPost that dozens of its members were owed money. Individual operators cited in the report included C-Town, Bravo and Key Food stores. Some grocers said the delays had created significant cash-flow problems for businesses already operating on thin margins.
The controversy is not primarily about whether food-insecure New Yorkers should receive assistance. It is about how that assistance is administered and who ultimately bears the financial risk.
The New York Post reported in August that Mayor Mamdani’s administration was moving forward with a new $75 million contract with Mercato even as independent supermarkets alleged that the company owes them more than $1 million for groceries already delivered to program participants.
The city Department of Health has said that its invoices to Mercato have been paid on time. The timing has intensified scrutiny. The city’s own website confirms that the Groceries to Go program remains paused since July 1 and is currently not enrolling new participants while the city works through what is termed “administrative” issues.
At the same time, the city is opening a new Mercato contract worth up to $75 million from July 2026 through June 2032. The City Record describes the contract as providing the online platform through which participants can purchase subsidized groceries and delivery from a network of brick-and-mortar grocery stores.
The Program’s Benefits Are Real
The controversy should not obscure why Groceries to Go exists. For someone who is food insecure, has health issues and may have difficulty getting to a supermarket, the ability to order groceries for delivery can be materially different from receiving a food box or visiting a pantry.
The program allows participants to choose their own food from a broad network of stores rather than receiving a predetermined package. Credits can be carried forward rather than expiring at the end of each month.
The city has specifically built nutrition incentives into the program. The 50% discount on fresh produce is consistent with a broader city strategy of using purchasing incentives to increase consumption of healthier foods.
There is evidence that the program has reached a meaningful number of people, albeit relatively small compared with the city’s overall food-assistance system. As of early April 2025, more than 2,350 New Yorkers were enrolled, with the program reaching another 5,600 people. Since its relaunch in 2023, the program had reached more than 13,200 New Yorkers, including participants and household members.
City Food Assistance Inputs: Subsidies & “Mamdani Marts”
Groceries to Go becomes particularly relevant to the mayor’s proposed municipal supermarkets. Mamdani has proposed five city-owned grocery stores, with the first planned for the Bronx and additional stores envisioned across the five boroughs. The City is promoting they will sell a core basket of groceries at prices approximately 30% below typical retail prices.
Both initiatives are fundamentally different but are ultimately responding to the same underlying problem: New Yorkers who struggle to afford food and live in neighborhoods where access to affordable, full-service grocery stores can be limited.
Groceries to Go subsidizes the consumer and uses existing private retailers. Mamdani’s grocery-store plan would have the city provide the physical retail infrastructure and establish a pricing strategy, while private operators would manage the stores.
A Groceries to Go participant potentially has access to hundreds of stores across the city. A customer of a municipal supermarket has to live, work or travel near one of the five locations. The city is therefore trying two very different approaches to the same problem: subsidize demand through existing retailers or intervene directly in grocery supply.
NYC Has a Lot of Food Assistance Programs
Groceries to Go also operates within a much larger food-assistance ecosystem. The biggest is SNAP, which provides monthly benefits that can be spent at participating grocery stores. New Yorkers can also use SNAP benefits for online grocery shopping at participating retailers, although SNAP cannot generally be used to pay delivery fees.
The city has reported that 1.8 million New Yorkers rely on SNAP, including approximately 540,000 children and 540,000 older adults. SNAP itself costs approximately $420 million per month, or about $5 billion annually. Overwhelmingly much of this comes from federal money rather than city funding.
The city supplements SNAP through Health Bucks, which provide $2 coupons for fresh fruits and vegetables at participating farmers markets and farm stands. SNAP shoppers can receive $2 in Health Bucks for every $2 spent, up to $10 per day. The city distributed $2.25 million in Health Bucks during fiscal 2025.
Another program, Get the Good Stuff, operates directly through participating supermarkets. SNAP shoppers receive matching benefits on qualifying purchases of fruits, vegetables and beans, up to $10 per day.
The city also operates Community Food Connection, formerly known as the Emergency Food Assistance Program. It provides funding to more than 700 community kitchens and food pantries across New York City. Pantries provide groceries for home preparation, while community kitchens provide prepared meals.
In FY2025, its network of 703 providers distributed 47.1 million pounds of food. Providers recorded 37.2 million visits during the year. The program received $58.6 million in FY2026 city funding, after funding more than doubled during the Adams administration.
For older New Yorkers, the city operates Home Delivered Meals, which provides meals to eligible adults age 60 and older. NYC Aging says its older-adult centers and home-delivered meals programs collectively serve more than 10 million meals annually.
Children have another extensive food-support network. New York City Public Schools provides free school meals, while its Summer Meals program provides free breakfast and lunch to anyone 18 or younger without requiring registration, identification or proof of eligibility. In 2026, the summer program operated across schools, parks, pools, libraries and other locations.
NYC Public Schools served 142.5 million meals during the 2024-25 school year, including approximately 220,000 breakfasts and 550,000 lunches per day. A 2026 Comptroller review found that school food spending was approximately $600 million in FY2025, with 153.3 million meals served across participating schools.
There are also more targeted food-as-medicine programs. More Veggies, for example, provides $100 to $150 per month on a produce-purchasing card to 250 Bronx residents who are on Medicaid, are food insecure and have poorly controlled diabetes. Participants also receive case-management support and diabetes education.
And Then There’s FRESH
Perhaps the most relevant existing program to the municipal-supermarket debate is the city’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health, or FRESH, program.
Rather than operating grocery stores itself, FRESH uses tax and zoning incentives to encourage private supermarket operators and developers to build or retain grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods.
The program was launched in 2009. NYC Economic Development Corp. says 30 projects have completed construction and opened to the public, representing more than 1.1 million square feet of grocery space, $177 million in private investment and more than 1,400 jobs created, with another 600-plus jobs retained.
The city’s 2025 food metrics report counted 47 operational FRESH supermarkets and another 35 in development. It estimated that 1.7 million New Yorkers live within a half-mile of a FRESH supermarket.
That makes FRESH an important part of the debate because it helps ensure that a neighborhood has a supermarket. However, it cannot necessarily guarantee that groceries will be cheaper once that supermarket arrives.
New York already has three broad approaches available: give consumers more purchasing power, make food assistance available through community organizations, or make it easier for private grocery operators to locate in underserved neighborhoods.
Mamdani’s municipal supermarkets would add a fourth: have the city itself enter the grocery business. And that’s where the debate over whether this initiative is a bridge too far.
The Larger Question of Public Benefit
New York City has developed an extensive network of programs designed to improve food access. Some put money in consumers’ hands. Others subsidize healthy purchases. Others provide meals or groceries directly. And programs such as FRESH attempt to make the economics of operating a supermarket work in neighborhoods where the private market has struggled.
Obviously, solving hunger is not a one size fits all solution.
The city has demonstrated that it can use public dollars to increase food purchasing power. The controversy surrounding Groceries to Go puts the operational side of that system under a microscope.The concern is whether it can administer these dollars efficiently, and can the city do it better?
That question becomes even more important as the city considers moving from subsidizing grocery consumption to owning grocery infrastructure.
These are big problems, and big problems require bigger solutions.
We applaud any elected official who tries to solve issues of real Public need. In our humble opinion far too many officials give lip-service and do nothing. But in this case we wonder if the NYC government creating businesses is too far of a reach for it to be an effective solution here.
In the same way we wouldn’t expect a fish to fly or a bird to swim – we all must play to our core competencies. It’s important that those creating the solutions focus on their strengths, for what they’re trying to accomplish.
I’ll add that penguins swim and flying fish soar through the air, so I’d like to think almost anything is possible these days!