by DCG
Almost a year ago I quit shopping at Wal-Mart due to their relationship with China. We now make our grocery purchases from a local employee-owned grocery store.
We use to make monthly trips to the city to do large purchases at a family-owned, Oklahoma grocery chain. That has come to an end, unfortunately, because of the Wuhan virus. I really miss that monthly trip as this store is THE BEST: Extremely WIDE aisles, HUGE grocery carts, good prices, TONS of checkout stations available and they employ people with disabilities to bag your groceries.
The fear of going out to grocery stores and catching the virus combined with the severe restrictions stores have been ordered to implement (only one person per cart, only go one way in the aisle, etc.), many people are now ordering online for delivery or pick up. And they are ordering from those big chain stores that have the resources to implement those options: Walmart, Target and Amazon.
Demorat Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has recognized that many SNAP recipients may want to use their benefits in the same way and will now allow online SNAP purchases (which was approved by the federal government). From his tweets:
“To keep more families safe and healthy, my administration is expanding the ways in which SNAP recipients can acquire groceries to include online purchasing.
The best part is that in addition to helping families shop a little easier and safer during this pandemic, this is a permanent new feature of the SNAP landscape in Illinois that will support our residents for many years to come.”
While I’m all for people having options to make online purchasing, I’m saddened to see that major, big-box corporations will most likely be the primary beneficiaries (Walmart and Amazon have already agreed to be part of the program). Aren’t those the exact type of wealthy companies that demorats claim to despise?
You know the local mom-and-pop stores and locally-owned stores aren’t going to benefit from this new SNAP option nearly as much as Walmart and Amazon. Just a shame that while big boxes thrive, our local small businesses are dying. With the support of our taxpayer dollars.
DCG