The colourful produce part at Tremendous Recent at East 149th Road and Brook Ave. on Aug. 19, 2025.
Photograph Emily Swanson
Grocery retailer managers are elevating issues concerning the Trump administration’s cuts to SNAP advantages, which they are saying are more likely to hurt not solely households however native companies that rely upon prospects’ meals {dollars}.
Kristie Pimentel, supervisor of Tremendous Recent East 149, has been all-in at her household’s grocery enterprise since 2021, after a stint in company promoting. Members of her household on each side have owned grocery companies within the Dominican Republic, and her father, Frank, “eats, lives, breathes supermarkets” because the proprietor of 9 shops within the Bronx and citywide, Pimentel stated.
Now, as she runs the South Bronx retailer from morning to nighttime, Pimentel stated she is “here in the nitty-gritty every day,” seeing firsthand how individuals spend their meals budgets. Having grown up within the business, “A lot of these customers, I’ve known them forever,” she stated.
What Pimentel stated she sees at Tremendous Recent is that many individuals are barely staying afloat now. “They’re already trying really hard to stretch their dollars as much as they can.”
However beneath the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which slashed $300 billion in SNAP funding via 2034 — an unprecedented lower of about 30% — main adjustments are seemingly coming for purchasers and retailer operators alike.
Roughly half 1,000,000 Bronxites, or one-third of the borough, presently depend on SNAP advantages and sure don’t have wiggle room of their finances to make up for cuts: a February survey by the nonprofit No Child Hungry discovered that 53% of New Yorkers reported a rise in debt over the previous yr attributable to rising meals costs.
Tremendous Recent East 149 has a full-service butcher counter, deli and scorching bar. Photograph by Emily Swanson
Pimentel stated “a huge portion” of the shop’s gross sales come from SNAP {dollars} and that cuts may threaten the shop’s capacity to inventory recent, wholesome merchandise and hold workers employed.
Each $1 in SNAP advantages generates roughly $1.50 of financial exercise at native bodegas and shops, in response to the nonprofit Metropolis Harvest.
‘You can’t actually plan forward’
Whereas the Pimentel household shops are technically beneath the umbrella of Key Meals, they’re individually operated and related to the neighborhood via metropolis and nonprofit partnerships, stated Pimentel. Specifically, Tremendous Recent caters to SNAP recipients and promotes public well being.
The shop participates in what Pimentel known as an “amazing” metropolis program, Get the Good Stuff, which matches buyers’ SNAP {dollars} spent on recent greens, fruits and beans, as much as $10 per day. SNAP recipients can join this system inside the shop.
Tremendous Recent additionally companions with Metropolis Harvest on its Diet and Culinary Training initiatives and with the nonprofit BronxWorks, which holds in-store cooking demos with new recipes as soon as per 30 days. Small playing cards on gadgets all through the shop, comparable to plantains and limes, establish wholesome gadgets and provides tips about the best way to use them.
An indication selling “Get the Good Stuff,” a metropolis program that matches SNAP recipients’ spending on wholesome fruits, veggies and beans. Photograph by Emily Swanson
Informational playing cards give buyers tips about the best way to use wholesome merchandise. Photograph by Emily Swanson
However Pimentel stated the SNAP cuts will solely harm people who find themselves already struggling. She stated many shoppers, together with seniors, spend additional time store-hopping for one of the best reductions, and a few can’t even spare 33 cents for a reusable bag.
The prospect of slicing meals for low-income individuals is senseless, stated Pimentel. “That’s not the place we should be cutting back on spending,” she stated. “For our customers, it breaks my heart, really.”
When patrons have much less to spend, a “kind of trickle effect” will seemingly set in and impression in-store decision-making, stated Pimentel. Grocery store revenue margins are already slim, particularly on important gadgets comparable to milk and eggs, the place the value can solely be set so excessive.
The looming SNAP cuts have created a “scary” degree of uncertainty round how a lot to maintain in inventory, the place to set costs and what gadgets individuals will skip once they have fewer SNAP {dollars}, Pimentel stated.
“Now, you can’t really plan ahead. You kind of have to wait until the ball drops and then you figure out how to move around it.”
The grocery enterprise has at all times had its challenges — particularly as a necessary enterprise that remained open throughout the top of the pandemic — however shops like Tremendous Recent are vital in a borough that lacks high-quality, full-service supermarkets.
“There is, I think, kind of like this moral responsibility to make sure that you stay in business because your customers are also depending on you,” stated Pimentel.
With the most important SNAP cuts coming, she stated her household’s retailer will attempt to assist fill the hole. “However we can help, we’re gonna have to step it up.”
They might must discover higher reductions, fundraising and different efforts because the cuts start to hit house, which is able to seemingly start within the fourth quarter of the yr, Pimentel stated.
“As a business in the community, you have to understand that your community is what funds what you do, so there are times when you have to turn around and see, what can I do for them?”
