Ghost Stores: How Grocery Chains Create Food Deserts

When a supermarket closes, you'd expect another grocer to move in. But across the country, chains write restrictive covenants into deeds and leases that bar any competing grocery store from opening on that site, sometimes for decades after the original store is gone. Advocates call them zombie covenants: the store is dead, but the restriction lives on. They help explain why so many low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are still waiting on a place to buy fresh food. This week we trace the story from white flight and redlining to today's consolidated grocery industry, hear from a former Whole Foods purchasing chief about why chains treat stores like ATMs, and follow the fight over California's AB 1857, the Grocery Store Access Act. Plus what cities from Chicago to Woonsocket, Rhode Island have tried, and what a public grocery store could look like. Featuring: Beth Smoker, Policy Director, California Food and Farming Network Kyle Winterboer, Investigative Policy Analyst, Winterboer Policy Dig Deja Thomas, Manager of Strategic Partnerships and Community Initiatives, Los Angeles Food Policy Council Errol Schweizer, former head of purchasing, Whole Foods Market, and host of The Checkout Austin Frerick, author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry Archival audio: California Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry and Cameron Mims Jones of Nourish California, testimony on AB 1857, California State Legislature Brandon Housekeeper, Northwest Grocery and Retail Association, testimony on HB 2294 before the Washington House Consumer Protection & Business Committee, January 14, 2026 (courtesy TVW) Credits: - Host: Casey J. Adler - Producers: John Johns, Vanessa Kolb, Dan Pavlish - Senior Producer: Dan Pavlish - Executive Producer and Audio Editor: Ace Estwick - Engineer: Ace Estwick Music: - "Remembrance" by Dale Nichols - Additional music from Pixabay Learn More: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=2294&Year=2025 https://www.winterboerpolicydig.com/lasgrocerymerger/grocery-covenants https://www.goodfoodla.org/ https://www.thecheckoutradio.com/ https://www.austinfrerick.com/ Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world. Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world.