COMMUNITY FOOD ENVIRONMENT
ENACT Strategy: Attract Supermarkets
Attract supermarkets to underserved areas through financial and regulatory incentives
The lack of supermarkets and other large food outlets in many low-income communities is well documented [1,2]. These types of large markets have become the primary source of fresh produce for most American families; fewer supermarkets mean less access to fresh, high quality, affordable foods. Limited access can, in turn, impact food choices. According to a study by Morland et al. that included over 10,000 residents in 221 census tracts, residents’ intake of fruits and vegetables increased with each additional supermarket in their neighborhood [3].
Communities working to bring supermarkets to underserved areas should employ a well-researched, systematic approach. Common elements of communities that have successfully attracted supermarket investment are strong community advocacy and involvement coupled with active political leadership.
Characteristics of sucessful supermarket attraction strategies
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Provide an assessment of market demand
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Identify multiple site locations
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Create financial and regulatory incentives
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Provide development assistance
- Recruiting multiple operators [4]
When a fire destroyed the only grocery store in town, Upper Falls, NY residents had no local access to affordable, fresh foods. Recognizing the injustice of living in a community with such limited food options, residents and activists collaborated with local government officials to lobby for a new supermarket. After five years of tireless efforts and shifting strategies, the community group Partners Through Food convinced TOPS, a major grocery chain, to bring a shopping plaza and full-service supermarket to the community.
Healthy Food, Healthy Communities highlights three of the most promising strategies: developing new grocery stores, improving the selection and quality of food in existing smaller stores, and starting and sustaining farmers’ markets.
The Food Trust’s Supermarket Campaign
From policy to media, the Food Trust’s Supermarket Campaign addresses various aspects of a successful effort to bring supermarkets back to a low-income community of Philadelphia.
‘Combating Supermarket Flight in Los Angeles’
"Food for thought for financial institutions as they design community development strategies and consider innovative approaches to addressing the needs of low-income communities.”
Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit
This toolkit includes data collection tools and a general guide to community assessment and focused materials for examining six basic assessment components related to community food security: general community characteristics and community food resources, household food security, food resource accessiblity, food availability and affordability, and community food production resources.
Economic Development and Redevelopment: A Toolkit on Land Use and Health
This toolkit is designed for nutrition and other public health advocates working to improve healthy food access in low-income communities. It helps advocates increase their understanding of "economic development and redevelopment tools available, their use, and how to effectively participate in decisions about their use."
Resolution Urging Albertson’s Inc. Not to Close
Urges the grocery chain Albertson’s to find an alternative to closing in an underserved area of San Francisco.
Grocery Stores in South Los Angeles
The city of Los Angeles commissioned a report on possible financial and planning incentives the city could provide in order to attract more grocery stores and sit-down restaurants to underserved areas of the city.
The Fresh Food Financing Initiative
The state of Pennsylvania has implemented legislation to support the establishment of supermarkets in underserved communities in Philadelphia. The Fresh Food Financing Initiative outlines specific requirements to ascertain funding for stores or communities interested in improving the nutrition environment of local areas.
Neighborhood Groceries: New Access to Healthy Food in Low-Income Communities
This report from the California Food Policy Advocates outlines the problem of access to healthy foods, and provides market-based strategies to improve the nutrition environment.
in the ENACT Local Policy Database
"PolicyLink is a national nonprofit research, communications, capacity building, and advocacy organization working to advance policies to achieve economic and social equity. "
Nutrition Policy Profile – Supermarket Access in Low-Income Communities
Limited supermarket access makes it harder for people to meet their dietary needs, and may therefore contribute to escalating rates of chronic disease in low-income communities.
Redlining Food: How to Ensure Community Food Security
This coalition introduces the concept of redlining and how it cuts off low-income shoppers from easy access to nutritious, affordable food.
The Center for Food and Justice
CFJ offers insight and resources surrounding the social and environmental factors which affect food environments.
This report shows that obesity and diabetes rates are much higher in communities with an abundance of fast-food outlets and convenience stores than in areas where fresh fruit and vegetable markets and full-service grocery stores are easily accessible.
The Food Trust Reports
Two reports released by the Food Trust shed new light on the issues of access to fresh food and supermarkets. Together, these two reports quantify what many people have known for years: many communities in Philadelphia that have the economic base to support a supermarket are currently without one, and furthermore this lack of access has profound effects on public health.
Both substantial unmet food retail demand and tremendous economic opportunity for food retail development exist throughout Philadelphia’s communities. The report demonstrates that some communities in the city have as much as $205 million in unmet food retail demand, despite each inner-city community possessing at least $50 million dollars of retail buying power per square mile.
A joint collaboration between The Food Trust and the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation finds a strong connection between poor health, lack of access to healthy food, and consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Community Food Assessment: A First Step in Planning for Community Food Security
"Through a study of nine CFAs, this article discusses their common threads to planning, how a planning approach might strengthen CFAs, and what planners might learn from them."
References from the introduction
1 Cotterill RW. The urban grocery store gap. Food Marketing Policy Center, University of Connecticut. Issue Paper No. 8. April 1995.
2 Morland K et al. Neighborhood characteristics associated with the location of food stores and food service places. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2002; 22 (1): 23-9.
3 Morland K, Wing S, Diez Roux A, The contextual effect of the local food environment on residents’ diets: the atherosclerosis risk in communities study. American Journal of Public Health. 2002; 92 (11): 1761-7.
4 Kameshwari P. Attracting supermarkets to inner-city neighborhoods: economic development outside the box. Economic Development Quarterly. 2005; 19: 232-43.