New York Picks Four Firms to Brand Its $70 Million City Grocery Stores

New York City has committed $70 million in capital budget funds to municipal grocery stores, and it has now hired the branding team to make them look the part. The New York City Economic Development Corporation said Tuesday it selected four firms — Gander, Librarie, Noble Signs, and Seven Roots — to design the visual identity for five forthcoming city-owned grocery stores, one for each borough.

Gander, the strategic branding firm behind visual identities for the squeeze-bottle olive oil brand Graza and Yellow Bird hot sauce, will lead the project and oversee research, strategy, naming, brand application, and brand development. Its track record with consumer brands signals that the finished stores could borrow from the playbook of recent direct-to-consumer successes.

"We consider ourselves, for better or worse, grocery store nerds, and probably get way much too much enjoyment out of wandering the aisles of grocery stores everywhere we travel," Gander partner Mike McVicar told Fast Company. Wait — the quote, verbatim: "We consider ourselves, for better or worse, grocery store nerds, and probably get way too much enjoyment out of wandering the aisles of grocery stores everywhere we travel." Gander calls the assignment a dream project: a major civic initiative for its home city, and a grocery store besides.

"Our top priority is to help make this ambitious effort to address food insecurity in our city as wildly successful as possible, and ultimately help as many people as possible," McVicar said. "That means building a brand that resonates with an infinitely diverse population of New York City that has really high standards."

Librarie, a boutique consultancy that has advised brands including Ben Stiller's beverage venture Stiller's and the THC-infused drink brand Cann, will co-lead on brand positioning, voice, copy, and naming. Librarie's Fern Diaz said she hopes the consortium can turn the language around affordability and abundance from "words that can feel like policy jargon" into something New Yorkers "feel and experience."

Noble Signs, a multidisciplinary creative studio that founded the New York Sign Museum, will consult on New York City history and culture so the visual assets feel authentic to the city. Its past work includes Ace's Pizza in Brooklyn and hand-painted signage for City Councilman Justin Brannan's Coney Island office.

Seven Roots, an independent grocery store design and development firm, will advise on food retail, operations, and integrating the brand into the physical stores. It is the only consortium member not based in New York City, and it has developed independent grocers and community-owned food co-ops. Managing partner Heather Lazickas said the firm hopes its work contributes to a solid foundation for the NYC Groceries initiative, adding that the stores "will undoubtedly offer valuable lessons and inspiration for communities across the country working to strengthen their food access landscapes."

The NYCEDC opened requests for proposals for the program, called NYC Groceries, in May. The agency sought brand research into industry trends and consumer habits, a visual identity and design application, product private labeling, branded merchandise, and collaboration with architecture and engineering teams. The four winning firms, subject to approval by the NYCEDC Board of Directors, will work with NYCEDC and City Hall to develop the identity and execute the other deliverables.

"Our municipal grocery stores should be a place every New Yorker recognizes and feels welcome in," Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su said in a statement. "With expertise and experience in branding, city history, and grocery retail, this team will help us deliver stores that make affordable food easy to find in every borough."

Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaigned on city-run grocery stores last year and has allocated the $70 million since taking office. For a mayor who has shown a keen eye for visual branding in both politics and government, hiring professional designers for a signature promise fits a pattern.

NYCEDC CEO Anthony Shorris said selecting the right firms was an important step in "creating grocery stores that are welcoming, easy to recognize, and unmistakably New York." The first store, a 20,000-square-foot location at the Peninsula in the Bronx, is expected to open by 2027. A second site, a 9,000-square-foot store in East Harlem, has been identified. NYCEDC says all five stores should be open by the end of Mamdani's first term in 2030 — giving the brand team roughly five years to prove a city can run a grocery store New Yorkers actually want to shop in.