The Graza Olive-Oil People Are Designing Mamdani’s New Groceries

By , an Emmy Award–winning Curbed writer who has reported on New York City for four years Mayor Mamdani at a press conference for one of his campaign promises: city-run grocery stores. Photo: Adam Gray/Bloomberg/Getty Images Even if you’re a believer in Zohran Mamdani’s pilot plan for city-owned grocery stores, you may not be able to avoid the images that term conjures, of dingy gray Soviet commissaries or the scuffed linoleum of a 1980s DMV office. The branding for the mayor’s new subsidized stores, though, is likely to be anything but. Those efforts are being led by a handful of firms big on dopamine-inducing zigzags, retro fonts, and zingy names. The people who will be working on the branding of New York’s lightly subsidized eggs and milk are the same ones who gave us Graza olive oil in its signature squeeze bottles and the psychedelic Magic Spoon cereal boxes with wizards riding cartoon rabbits. The design elements of those products were handled by Gander, a Brooklyn firm that won New York’s call to envision the look, feel, and branding for the city’s five supermarkets, the first of which may open as early as next year. The request for proposals came from the New York City Economic Development Corporation, which last week named three other firms that will work under Gander: Noble Signs, the shop that built the retro-looking exteriors of Radio Bakery and Upside Pizza and charmingly flipped Park Slope’s “Wash” into “Mash”; Librarie, a consultant that specializes in copywriting and communications; and Seven Roots, a Wisconsin company that builds independent grocery stores and co-ops. The mix makes sense: Noble Signs thinks about what retail looks like from the street and can help with way-finding placards that guide shoppers to their rice and beans. Librarie will tackle the challenge of giving the stores a name, since “N.Y.C. Groceries” is just a stand-in, and has expertise in navigating brand crises — such as opening a store in a political minefield. And Seven Roots can make sure this isn’t all for show, advising on functional matters: aisle width, checkout flow, restocking procedures. Gander was cited for its “deep expertise in the grocery space,” but apart from its branding work for products that end up on millennials’ shelves, its experience is limited to Pop Up Grocer, which builds spaces that feel like high-fashion boutiques designed to highlight odd products, including mushroom chocolates and antelope-liver supplements. A view of the Bleecker Street location of Pop Up Grocer, which sells specialty products in a space that feels like a boutique. Photo: Google Maps We don’t know much more about the city stores yet except the locations — three of which are still being worked out — and the opening dates. But a focus on design is typical for Mayor Mamdani, who campaigned with graphics that evoked the hand-lettering of yesteryear, redesigned the keys to the city that were handed to Knicks players, and was praised for the campaign around the World Cup, which included limited-edition jerseys that went viral and featured tiny pigeons, an addition the mayor personally insisted on. Still, the focus on branding feels a little strange for a store that’s built on a fundamental promise: to cut out middlemen and margins and get prices down. Cutesy branding in the shoppy-shop manner could undermine that, implying that a fancy-looking jar of peanut butter would have cost less if the city hadn’t spent money to make it fancy-looking. Or, as a redditor wrote in response to the announcement, “I’d be shocked if this doesn’t end up as something slightly cringe with graffiti murals of a bodega cat ordering a baceoneggandcheese from a pigeon while pizza rat waits for his chopped cheese.” The Graza Olive-Oil People Are Designing Mamdani’s Groceries Your product is saved! You’ll receive emails when your saved products go on sale. Manage preferences.