COMMUNITY FOOD ENVIRONMENT
ENACT Strategy: Attract Grocery Stores
Attract grocery stores to underserved areas through financial and regulatory incentives
Many low-income Americans do not live near a full-service grocery store [1]. Unfortunately, because large markets have become the primary source of fresh produce for most American families, fewer grocery stores means less access to affordable and healthy foods. Ultimately, because our eating habits are constrained to what is available and affordable, this inequitable food environment shapes unhealthy consumption patterns. A recent study demonstrated that residents' intake of fruits and vegetables increased with each additional supermarket in their neighborhood [2].
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
- Recruit multiple operators
When a fire destroyed the only grocery store in town, the mostly low-income, African American residents had no 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.
Grocery Gap Analysis: Washington DC
This report, prepared by Social Compact Inc., provides a clear picture of the existing grocery gap and lays out robust evidence that the District — especially in lower-income sections of the city — both needs and can support additional full-service grocery stores. Studies have shown that investing in grocery retail will generate sizeable health and economic benefits in the city.
The Fresh Food Financing Initiative: Pennsylvania
The Fresh Food Financing Initiative encourages the development of food retail in underserved Pennsylvania communities. Coordinated by The Food Trust, the Fresh Food Financing Initiative has so far committed $63.3 million in funding for 68 supermarket projects in 27 Pennsylvania counties, and has created or preserved 3,700 jobs.
Stimulating Supermarket Development: A New Day in New York
In 2007, the NYC Supermarket Commission, a group of leaders from the supermarket industry, government, and civic sector, was tasked with providing new recommendations on ways to combat supermarket shortages and a lack of access to affordable, healthy foods. Convened by The Food Trust, the Commission released a list of public policy recommendations to encourage supermarket development. Working on a state and local level, the Supermarket Commission has begun to implement some of these recommendations, helping to bring supermarkets to underserved areas and preserve existing markets.
Mandela Foods Cooperative: West Oakland, CA
Mandela Foods Cooperative is a locally-owned and operated full-service grocery store and nutrition education center located in West Oakland, a community long underserved in grocery retail. Opened in June 2009, the Cooperative has been designed to benefit residents by improving the food environment, offering new employment opportunities, bolstering the neighborhood’s economic base, providing nutrition education, supporting local farmers, and much more.
Community Food Security Assessment Toolkit
This resource includes a general guide to community assessment, as well as various data collection tools for use in examining six key factors related to food security: general community characteristics; community food resources; household food security; food resource accessiblity; food availability and affordability; and community food production resources.
Healthy Food Retailing
This online tool, from PolicyLink, offers concerned residents, policymakers, business leaders, and advocates ideas and strategies for improving access to healthy food in underserved communities. This tool discusses 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.
Grocery Store Attraction Strategies
This report, by PolicyLink and the Bay Area Local Initiatives Support Corporation, presents coordinated strategies to attract new grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. The proposed strategies leverage the resources and leadership of both community-based organizations and local government agencies.
Economic Development and Redevelopment: A Toolkit on Land Use and Health
This toolkit, created by Public Health Law and Policy's "Planning for Healthy Places" program, is designed for public health advocates working to improve healthy food access in low-income communities. It provides information about relevant economic development and redevelopment tools, their use, and how to effectively participate in decisions about their use.
Funding Sources for Healthy Food Retail:
A Guide to Federal and California State Economic Development Resources
Developing new grocery stores and cooperatives, creating farmers’ markets, and improving the
quality of foods sold at convenience stores are all ways to increase a community’s access to
healthy food. This guide, while not comprehensive, provides an overview of the range of federal
and California funding programs available to support these strategies. It was created by Public Health Law and Policy’s “Planning for Healthy Places” program.
Starved for Access: Life in Rural America’s Food Deserts
The brief, published by the Rural Sociological Society, examines what local communities and policymakers can do to increase access to healthy foods in currently underserved rural areas.
Grocery Store Incentives: Los Angeles, CA
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.
Fresh Food Financing Initiative: Pennsylvania
The state of Pennsylvania has implemented legislation to support the establishment of supermarkets in underserved communities across the state. The Initiative outlines specific requirements that must be met by those seeking funding to improve local nutrition environments.
Food Retail Expansion to Support Health: New York City
In response to a study finding that many of its neighborhoods are underserved by grocery stores, the City established the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program. FRESH provides zoning and financial incentives for the establishment and retention of grocery stores.
Resolution Urging Albertson’s Inc. Not to Close: San Francisco, CA
This resolution, passed by the Board of Supervisors, urged the grocery chain Albertson’s to work with the City and the community to find an alternative to closing a large grocery store in an underserved area of San Francisco.
Limit Restrictive Land Use Covenants: Chicago, IL
This innovative Chicago ordinance limits the ability of grocers and drugstores from using land use covenants that prevent other grocers and drugstores from occupying the parcel once vacated. The aim of this policy is to minimize neighborhood blight and promote healthy food access in urban communities.
in the ENACT Local Policy Database
PolicyLink believes that “where you live affects how you live.” Among other issues, PolicyLink focuses on improving access to healthy foods—particularly in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, whose residents often do not have access to full-service grocery stores.
The Food Trust
Founded in 1992, the Philadelphia-based Food Trust works to improve the health of children and adults, promote good nutrition, increase access to nutritious foods, and advocate for better public policy. The Supermarket Campaign pushes for grocery store development in other underserved communities around the country. The Supermarket Campaign incorporates local research, grassroots activism, and a strategic use of the media to improve local policies.
Planning for Healthy Places
Planning for Healthy Places (PHP) is a program of Public Health Law and Policy. PHP works to increase interaction between public health professionals and city/regional planning officials, with the goal of building healthier community environments. One of PHP’s focus areas is increasing access to healthy foods in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity
The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity is devoted to improving the world’s diet, preventing obesity, and reducing weight stigma. One of the Center’s current initiatives is focused on Improving Access to Healthy Food for economically disadvantaged families.
This study, by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and PolicyLink, found much higher obesity and diabetes rates in communities with many convenience stores and fast food restaurants than in areas where fresh produce and full-service grocery stores are accessible.
Access to Healthy Foods in Low-Income Neighborhoods – Opportunities for Public Policy
This report, put together by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity, summarizes existing research showing that not all Americans have equal access to affordable, healthy foods. It then outlines important public policy opportunities to improve low-income food environments.
The Food Trust Reports
Two reports released by The Food Trust shed light on the issue of access to healthy, affordable food and full-service grocery stores within the city of Philadelphia.
Substantial unmet food retail demand and tremendous economic opportunity for food retail development exist side by side in many Philadelphia communities.
This report, by The Food Trust and the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation, finds a strong connection between poor health, lack of access to healthy food, and infrequent consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Neighborhood Environments: Disparities in Access to Healthy Foods in the U.S. **
This review, which considered 54 previous studies, found that neighborhood residents who have better access to supermarkets and limited access to convenience stores tend to have healthier diets and lower levels of obesity. Further, national and local studies across the U.S. suggest that residents of low-income, minority, and rural neighborhoods are most often affected by poor access to supermarkets and healthful foods.
Larson, N., Story, M., & Nelson, M. (2009). Neighborhood environments: Disparities in access to healthy hoods in the U.S. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 36(1), Pages 74-81.e10.
Community Food Assessment: A First Step in Planning for Community Food Security **
Community food assessments (CFAs) constitute a first step in planning for community food security. Through a study of nine Community Food Assessments (CFAs), this article discusses their common threads to planning, how a planning approach might strengthen CFAs, and what planners might learn from them.
Pothukuchi, K. (2004). Community food assessment: A first step in planning for community food security. Journal of Planning Education and Research. 23: 356-377.
** We are only able to link to article abstracts.
References from the introduction
1 Larson, N.I., Story, M.T., & Nelson, M.C. Neighborhood environments: Disparities in access to healthy foods in the U.S. American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 2009; 36(1): 74-81.
2 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.
