Taking Steps Toward Adequate Supermarket Access
Today’s Dietitian
By Mary Anne Clairmont, RD
Vol. 6 No. 5 p. 38

Food insecurity threatens the health of millions of American families every year. Americans with low incomes are most vulnerable to unreliable food sources.

Inadequate access to supermarkets elevates the rate of diet-linked disease, which threatens both adults and children, among people who live in poor communities and creates a food crisis. This crisis must be confronted and dealt with by providing a secure and stable food source in neglected neighborhoods.

Supermarkets are the answer to this crisis. However, they have all but disappeared from many urban areas and it is no simple matter to bring them back to inner cities. No group knows this better than the Philadelphia Food Trust.

Supermarket Campaign of Philadelphia’s Food Trust
“Food retailers have redlined low-income neighborhoods,” says Hannah Burton, the program coordinator for the Supermarket Campaign of Philadelphia’s Food Trust. Founded in 1992, the trust’s mission is to ensure that everyone in the city has access to affordable, nutritious food. The trust directs programs on several fronts, including the Supermarket Campaign, to accomplish its mission (see “The Many Arms of The Food Trust”).

Burton joined The Food Trust as program coordinator for the Supermarket Initiative in 2002 during the birth of the Supermarket Campaign. “‘Food for Every Child’ was intentionally created and chosen as a tagline to motivate public officials to action,” she says. “But the risks to the health and nutrition of children and the needs of the children in Philadelphia are very real.” A report that was researched and written by staff of The Food Trust shows that the shortage of supermarkets is definitely a big issue impacting the health of Philadelphians, especially poor children.1

According to Burton, Philadelphia’s poverty status is not much different from most other major cities across the country, but it has the second-lowest number of supermarkets per capita of all the major cities in the nation. (See “Supermarket Scarcity in Major Cities” for facts about other cities.) “There are large areas of Philadelphia with only a few supermarkets and many neighborhoods where there are no supermarkets at all,” Burton says. “People who live in large areas all over the city have to shop in small corner stores where the prices are high and the selection of food is limited. These are the people who can least afford to pay high prices—residents with the lowest incomes who can’t afford to travel to supermarkets where prices are better. This uneven distribution of food in Philadelphia has a tremendous negative effect on large numbers of low-income people.”

Burton believes the public sector has a responsibility to provide a safe and stable food supply in underserved communities, and that’s why The Food Trust is calling “upon the city and state governments to take the lead in developing a public-private response to this problem.”

Food Marketing Task Force
In April 2002, the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services held a hearing on the issue of access to proper nutrition for low-income children and families. The hearing was held in response to the public health epidemic of poor access to nutritious foods resulting in malnutrition and diet-related disease in Philadelphia. The hearing was the first step in an effort to increase public awareness, initiate dialogue about solutions, and create change. As a response to the call to action begun by this hearing, the Food Marketing Task Force was created in April 2003 to further the goals of the Supermarket Campaign. The Food Marketing Task Force is chaired by Christine James-Brown, president and CEO of the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Walter Rubel, director, government and community affairs of Acme Markets.

The Food Marketing Task Force examines the barriers and opportunities to increasing the availability of food in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods and reports back to City Council and the mayor’s office. The task force was formed to produce a report recommending both short- and long-term policies to improve the availability of affordable and nutritious food in those areas of the city that are underserved.

The task force staff has held meetings with supermarket industry representatives to discuss barriers and opportunities for inner-city supermarkets. They have also met with the Wharton Real Estate department to discuss supermarket requirements and considerations for inner-city sites and to learn about the acquisition and development process.2

Why Did Supermarkets Leave Cities?
Philadelphians are not alone in their struggle to find a decent, affordable place to shop. Millions of Americans experience hunger. When the degree of nutrition required for good health is not met, hunger prevails. Access to an affordable, nutritious food supply is a basic right of every human being. This right is threatened by the national trend of supermarket redlining.

This trend began during the 1960s, as major supermarket chains pulled up stakes in inner cities and set up full amenity, 24-hour mega stores in the suburbs. As inner-city stores closed, urban residents found themselves either traveling farther to purchase wholesome, reasonably priced groceries or paying extravagant prices for inferior processed foods at corner stores. Supermarket closures usually occur in low-income, inner-city neighborhoods. This means that those who can least afford it are forced to pay more for their groceries and travel farther to get them.3

Redlining usually calls to mind visions of insurance companies, realtors, and banks refusing to grant reasonable insurance policies, mortgages, and loans to inhabitants of specific communities. Now these visions include the crumbling shells of urban supermarkets. The supermarket business has drawn borders signifying where wholesome, nutritious, economical food is and has not provided for communities throughout the country.3

The result of supermarket redlining is that low-income shoppers are cut off from easy access to nutritious, affordable food. As food becomes more inaccessible, the number of those suffering from hunger increases throughout the country.3

Bringing Them Back
The Food Marketing Task Force and the Supermarket Campaign have been crucial to paving the way for negotiations with a medium-sized chain that’s interested in establishing stores in Philadelphia. “There are dollars to be made by the supermarket, but they need the right conditions to operate their business,” says Burton. “We understand they have to make a profit. We are not asking them to give us anything. We are offering the supermarkets an opportunity to partner with us and serve underserved communities, making a profit in the process.”

The task force recognizes that there are unique marketing challenges in a city compared to a suburb, where populations tend to be more homogenous. “The urban population is more diverse with more ethnic groups and different preferences,” Burton says. “You may have Hispanic, Asian, and African American customers with strong preferences all shopping at your store.”

The costs involved in building and operating a store in a city can also be a challenge. “The public sector can help by offering tax incentives, expediting zoning permits, and putting together attractive incentive packages that make owners want to do business here,” Burton suggests. “Changing public transportation routes is another strategy to assure supermarket owners that customers will have easy access to their store.”

Another option is to meet them halfway—literally. Instead of bringing supermarkets all the way into communities, people can be transported to the closest supermarkets. This can be accomplished with shuttles, adjusted public transportation schedules, or ride share programs. The public sector, private sector, or a creative mix that is the most beneficial to all parties concerned can fund these strategies. This will meet the goal of “ensuring that everyone has access to affordable, nutritious food,” albeit through a different route.

Setting An Example
The successful efforts of the Food Marketing Task Force and the Supermarket Campaign have been discovered by other communities throughout Pennsylvania and have served as a model solution for their own food security problems.

Norristown is a community of 31,282 citizens and the county seat for Montgomery County, which borders the city of Philadelphia. At one time, Norristown housed a thriving downtown business district, three movie theaters, three general hospitals, and one of the largest government psychiatric hospitals in the country. A large shopping mall in a neighboring town and ever-increasing suburban sprawl eventually led to the decline of the town.

“It’s been seven years since we had a supermarket in Norristown,” says Rochelle Griffin-Culbreath, Norristown borough councilwoman. “So many of our residents have to walk to the store to buy food, [but] they can only get to convenience stores and ‘dollar stores’ that sell high-sodium convenience foods. A large percentage of our population is elderly with high rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes, so these stores are selling food that is plaguing our community.”

Griffin-Culbreath hopes to attract Supremo, a chain of grocery stores serving the Hispanic population that recently opened a store in North Philadelphia. She looks at the Supermarket Campaign of Philadelphia’s Food Trust process as a model for Norristown to follow. “You have to consider the business issues, the costs of doing business for the supermarkets, and make it worth their while,” she says. “They are not going to build a store unless they will make money, so you have to learn about their parking needs, tax incentives, and suitable sites,” she says.

Griffin-Culbreath explains that she began looking into the town’s supermarket crisis because “residents were asking, ‘Why don’t we have any supermarkets?’” She has sent out requests for proposal that contain attractive packages to potential supermarket chains to entice them to build in Norristown.

Burton confirms that in addition to Norristown, there are supermarket initiatives in Allentown, Pa., and Erie, Pa. Rep Frank Oliver of the Pennsylvania House prepared a report that cited a link between diet-related diseases and a lack of grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods. The report called on state government and municipalities to find ways to attract full-service grocery stores into low-income urban neighborhoods. It recommended the State Department of Community and Economic Development and local governments create economic incentives to bring supermarkets back into urban neighborhoods and eliminate the existing tax and regulatory barriers.

The Pennsylvania Supermarket Access Campaign has been created by The Food Trust, Pittsburgh’s Just Harvest, and Harrisburg’s Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center to bring together government leaders, health professionals, food retailers, business experts, and community activists to address the problem. The campaign’s objectives include involving “leaders from local and state government in meeting communities’ needs for fresh, affordable food at a reasonable price”; and analyzing and understanding “the relationship between supermarket access, income, and diet-related disease in rural and urban areas of Pennsylvania.”

“I know of no other state that has identified a role for state government," Burton says. "It’s groundbreaking and exciting."

— Mary Anne Clairmont, RD, is the nutritionist at Fairmount Behavioral Health System and owner of Take Two Nutrition, a nutrition consulting company in Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

References are available upon request by e-mailing TDeditor@gvpub.com.

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