Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Despite Del Valle's growth, it still doesn't have a grocery store. What's the holdup?

Two people arrange groceries in a bag in the trunk of a car.
Patricia Lim
/
KUT News
Richard Franklin and Rebecca Birch put groceries they bought at the Mueller H-E-B in an insulated bag for the 30-minute drive back to their home in Del Valle.

Lee esta historia en español

Richard Franklin had his heart set on making honey garlic pork bites. He had everything he needed for the recipe, except ground ginger.

“I initially said, well, it’s just powdered ginger, let me go to Dollar General. They don’t have it. Let me go across the street to the other dollar store. They don’t have it. I went to El Mercado. They don’t have it,” he recounted.

For most people in Austin, missing one ingredient in a recipe just means a quick trip to the grocery store. But Franklin and his wife, Rebecca Birch, live in Del Valle, a community of roughly 22,000 in Southeastern Travis County. Their neighborhood is classified as a food desert by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The convenience stores near them have canned and frozen food, but they're more expensive than at major groceries. Birch calls the fresh produce options at these stores “scary.”

“They tell you Dollar General has fresh fruit but you’re paying a dollar for a brown banana,” she said.

Franklin and Birch can afford to drive 30 minutes each way to the Mueller H-E-B to get a weekly haul of groceries. They keep two insulated bags in their trunk to keep items cold on the way home.

But not everyone in Del Valle has reliable transportation or the financial means to go out of their way to get healthy food. A 2024 report from the Central Texas Food Bank found nearly 18% of Del Valle residents are food insecure, compared to 14% in the rest of Travis County.

Hope for an H-E-B 

Residents have been advocating for a grocery store to open in their neighborhood for years. They’ve started petitions, handed out flyers and contacted their City Council representatives.

For many residents, hope that a major grocery store would eventually come to Del Valle was sparked in 2016 when H-E-B bought land near the airport at FM 973 and Texas 71.

In 2023, Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes, whose district includes Del Valle, wrote a letter urging H-E-B to prioritize building there.

“Over the past ten years, Del Valle has grown at a much faster rate than the City of Austin [32.7% compared to 21.7%]," she wrote. "As the area continues to rapidly grow, H-E-B has a real opportunity to make an impact and lead the way to combat food insecurity by establishing a location in Del Valle."

The letter didn't seem to make a difference, and this past November, H-E-B announced it was going to sell the land back to the developers.

Don't 'poke the bear'

H-E-B declined an interview for this story, but Errol Schweizer, a former Whole Foods executive and grocery store expert, has some insights into why it might not invest in Del Valle.

Grocery stores have an algorithm: a certain number of houses times a certain median family income equals a sweet spot for a new store. And though Del Valle is growing, the population isn't outpacing other sites H-E-B has its eye on.

The new store H-E-B is building in Manor, for example, has over 30,000 people within a 3-mile radius, according to commercial real estate company CoStar. There are about 19,000 people within a 3-mile radius of the land H-E-B bought in Del Valle, the company said.

As for other grocery stores, Schweizer said the mere possibility of H-E-B opening a store in Del Valle may be scaring off competitors. Even big grocers like Walmart don’t want to “poke the bear.”

“They’re scared of H-E-B. They’re scared of a price war or a turf war," he said. "Next thing you know H-E-B will start opening stores in opportunistic locations close to Walmarts.”

Del Valle resident Larry Bryant said if the neighborhood needs to grow more to get a grocery store, they’re stuck in a “chicken and egg” problem.

“That growth can’t happen because the services people expect don’t exist here," he said. "So a choice not to invest in business here really means that growth is capped.”

A temporary solution 

The City of Austin is trying to fill the void with a cooperative grocery store set to open this spring. Co-ops are stores owned by its customers; people can become members and give input on what items are available.

The store will be small — it’s being run out of a shipping container — and have limited hours, but Jess Ferrari, who worked on the project in the city’s economic development department, hopes it will provide much-needed food access until the area grows enough to attract a larger retailer.

Over 350 people have pledged to be members when the co-op opens. But Ferrari says they need many more for the co-op to be sustainable.

“If the community isn’t excited about this project and isn’t invested in it then the co-op won’t survive," she said. "And that’s the nature of co-ops.”

Franklin and Birch said they like the idea of a community-owned store, but they, too, are ready for their neighborhood to get a reliable grocery store, big enough to serve all of Del Valle.

Resident Aida Ramirez sees the temporary solution as a “slap in the face” and predicts the co-op will become overwhelmed quickly.

“Think about that. Think about what we have to settle with. We have to [shop] out of a container because we’re not worth a grocery store,” she said. “We pay taxes, too, and we should have access to basic resources like food. Real food.”

Related Content