The Dollar Store Backlash Has BegunThere's Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Dollar General. They all have more or less the same business plan.
Like Walmart before them, these retailers present themselves as creators of jobs and sources of low-cost goods and food in “left-behind”areas—both urban and rural.
And there's a lot of them:
In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonalds put together—and they’re still growing at a breakneck pace.
The problem is that the food they make available is not exactly the most healthy food in the world.
“While dollar stores sometimes fill a need in cash-strapped communities, growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress,” the authors of the brief write. “They’re a cause of it.”
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/closest-grocery-store-to-me-dollar-store-food-desert-bargain/577777/