Customers visiting the Dollar General at 1241 E. McCart St. in Krum this month will find an addition to the shelf staples like chips and bread. Following a remodel last month, the store now offers a small selection of fresh produce — options that can be hard to come by in a town without a grocery store.
The store is one of 5,000 Dollar General locations expected to offer fresh fruits and vegetables by January. The fresh produce available will include the top 20 items sold in grocery stores, the chain says. Apples, lemons and limes, onions, bagged salad, strawberries and tomatoes make the list, and stores will continue to carry select frozen and refrigerated foods like milk and cheese.
The move is aimed at providing underserved areas with more whole food options. Many discount general stores like Dollar General and Dollar Tree operate in food deserts, defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as areas in which at least 100 households are located more than a half-mile from a grocery store and don’t have vehicle access, or where 33% of the population lives more than 20 miles from a supermarket, regardless of vehicle access.
Without a neighborhood grocer, residents of food deserts often rely more on dollar and convenience stores to supplement their fridges and pantries.
“While Dollar General is not a grocer, we understand the affordable access our stores provide to customers, often in communities where other retailers cannot or will not serve,” a Dollar General spokesperson said in an email to the Denton Record-Chronicle.
“With approximately 75% of the U.S. population living within five miles of one of its general merchandise stores, millions of Americans rely on Dollar General to provide convenient, affordable access to the everyday products they need and want.”
The company also point to its “Better-for-You” program, which provides at-shelf product indicators and recipes developed by a registered dietitian.
But the chain’s relationship with food deserts isn’t that simple. A study by researchers from the University of Toronto and the UCLA Anderson School of Management found that dollar stores push out independent grocers, losing about one grocery store for every three dollar stores within a 2-mile radius. That leads to consumers trimming their purchase of fresh produce by as much as 7.4%, with the steepest declines among low-income households. Cities like Fort Worth have adopted ordinances to limit the spread of dollar stores, requiring them to have at least 2 miles between locations or devote a certain portion of their offerings to fresh food.
While adding produce to dollar stores might be an attempt to increase access to produce even in areas without such ordinances, it could deter traffic to neighborhood grocers and accelerate their exits. That could mean customers are left with a small selection of produce at higher prices once their local grocer has left — which might not be much of an incentive to buy whole foods.
“These stores offer very low prices, but they’re often selling smaller unit products as well so even though they’re at a lower price point, you might end up spending more overall because you have to buy more of them,” said Brett Hollenbeck, a marketing professor at UCLA Anderson and co-author of a study on the impact of dollar stores on food access.
A 2-pound bag of yellow onions at the Dollar General at 3001 N. Elm St. in Denton is $2.50, while the same onions will cost customers 80 cents per pound at Walmart, or $2.97 for a regularly priced 3-pound bag (though it was on sale for $2.18 Monday). A 9-ounce bag of romaine lettuce is slightly cheaper at Dollar General, though — $2.95 compared to $2.98 at Walmart.
Cities have reasons besides their inventory for wanting to deter the presence of dollar stores. The stores, often thinly staffed and located in high-crime areas, can be magnets for robberies, according to a report from ProPublica.
The addition of produce could be an attempt to counter some of the negative attention dollar stores have received, Hollenbeck says. Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, began piloting a new format, Dollar Tree Plus, in six states in 2021, following the rollout of produce at select Family Dollar stores.
“To me, it remains to be seen whether or not they end up offering meaningful amounts of groceries, or if it’s sort of a token effort to respond to their critics,” Hollenbeck said.
“If in some markets they offer a wide range of groceries, this would potentially help food deserts because you might have better offerings than you had before. To me, it really depends on how committed they are to offering a full range and not just a smaller token.”
Nearly 250 Dollar General locations in North Texas offer fresh produce, according to the chain, with fresh fruits and vegetables headed for stores in Clifton, Granbury, Odessa, Plano, Texarkana and Wichita Falls in the coming months.