Fixing Food Deserts
by Samantha Horne
Site Description:
Food deserts, areas without reasonable access to fresh produce and other healthy staples, span the entire United States, negatively impacting the food security and health of tens of millions of impoverished Americans. Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, entrepreneurial community members opened grocery stores in two of the most neglected urban areas, North Philadelphia and the South Bronx, New York. Each location has different approaches to serving the local population, and this report will compare the strategies used in order to understand why a Philadelphia grocer has been successful in improving nutritional equality in his area while a New York City economic development corporation’s program has failed to do so in the South Bronx. Close proximity to affordable and fresh produce should not be a luxury reserved for upper and middle-class Americans.
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Primary Sources:
Title: Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH); NYC EDC
Link: https://edc.nyc/program/food-retail-expansion-support-health-fresh
Location: New York City Economic Development Corporation
Description: This website provides information regarding the interagency program, FRESH, that has brought grocery stores to underserved areas in NYC, including the South Bronx store at the forefront of my report. The website emphasizes FRESH’s mission of giving tax incentives to supermarkets but lacks any subsequent initiative to help improve healthier habits and community well-being. Multiple sections of this website will provide a comprehensive understanding of the program.
Title: Our mission: Delicious, nutritious food for all; The Food Trust
Link: https://thefoodtrust.org/who-we-are/mission/
Location: The Food Trust
Description: This source is the mission page for the organization that administers the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, which has played a large role in bringing different food resources to the community, including the North Philadelphia store at the forefront of my report. This source will be compared to its NYC equivalent, the FRESH mission page, allowing me to analyze and report the difference in program approaches and how this has led to differences in success levels. Multiple sections of this website will provide a comprehensive understanding of the organization’s program.
Title: Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It; Reporter Margot Sanger-Katz; Published May 8, 2015
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-easy-access-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.html?searchResultPosition=62
Location: The New York Times
Description: This newspaper article covers the inception of the South Bronx Associated Market while summarizing recent research that has been done to understand new stores’ impact on a community’s dietary well-being—it specifically notes that the assessment completed by Elbel et al. is only a piece of a growing body of research. This source provides groundwork information regarding the store and introduces the newly discovered understanding that proximity to produce is not the only factor that must be considered while attempting to fix a food desert.
Title: Have City Subsidies to Supermarkets Made NYC Healthier?; Batya Ungar-Sargon; April 5, 2016
Link: https://citylimits.org/have-city-subsidies-to-supermarkets-made-nyc-healthier/
Location: City Limits Magazine
Description: In this digital magazine story, Ungar-Sargon corresponds with Beth Weitzman, Professor of Public Health & Policy at NYU. Their objective is to decipher whether benefits can be seen as a result of city-subsidized grocery stores popping up throughout the city. They find that customers seem to be satisfied with the stores, but Weitzman believes that FRESH has insufficiently provided New Yorkers with programmatic efforts to improve health.
Title: Building an oasis in a Philadelphia food desert; Reporter Paul Solman; Aired August 6, 2015
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tayxf5q5y8c&t=1s
Location: PBS News
Analysis: This video news story takes viewers inside the ShopRite that was opened in a North Philadelphia food desert two years prior. Within this tour of the market, cameos from customers and employees provide explanations of how this location has provided benefits to the community, including food accessibility, job opportunities, and health and social services. The source also includes an interview with its grocer Jeff Brown, who has successfully opened and operates seven grocery stores (now twelve) in Philadelphia. This source supplies an overview of the strategies Brown has implemented that have been able to improve the well-being of his customers as well as lead him to running a successful business. This source suggests that a grocer must be able to address as many social determinants of nutritional inequality as possible to be successful in benefiting the health and dietary well-being of residents living in food deserts.
This resource provides plenty of evidence that Brown has stretched his available resources and knowledge to reach as many people and address as many needs as possible. One of the most notorious social determinants in a food desert is economic instability. In the video, we are introduced to frozen foods manager Anthony Jackson, who holds one of the three hundred new jobs that this store has made available to community members. Jackson spent most of his life incarcerated, but Brown believed in him and rewards his hard work with a salary of over $50,000. We are also introduced to on-site nutritionist Ruby Dee Davis and watch as she is able to help a customer turn ten dollars into a healthy haul for her family—as she gives advice about shopping on a budget, she simultaneously provides nutrition education, another social determinant that affects residents’ health and habits. Brown himself explains how he has also taken into account the cultural traditions of the community members by stocking religiously sanctioned products. Other in-store resources include a walk-in clinic, where uninsured customers can see a nurse practitioner for only $20, and a social worker who is able to help customers apply for public benefits. Access to affordable and quality health and social services has a huge impact on the well-being of anyone, especially the impoverished minorities in North Philadelphia. It is evident that Brown has tried to take as many social determinants of nutritional inequality into account as possible, including economic stability, nutrition education, cultural tradition, and access to health and social services.
Secondary Sources:
Banks, Patricia. “Neighborhoods” In Race, Ethnicity, and Consumption : A Sociological View. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 2020. 93-115. https://bit.ly/3EUJUor
In this book chapter, author Patricia Banks delves into the relationship between a store and its surrounding neighborhood, specifically the relationship the owner and employees have with the customers. An important aspect of their interaction is being able to build rapport with ethnic minorities and make them feel accounted for in their own neighborhoods. Banks summarizes past research that has shown that residents feel more comfortable shopping in stores that employ people of their same race, as well as carry products that satisfy cultural preferences. The Philadelphia grocery store at the forefront of my research has been applauded by locals for employing members of the community as well as stocking shelves with familiar products such as halal meats for the Muslim community and fufu flour for West African immigrants. This context provided by Banks will help me supply reasoning as to why Philadelphians have embraced their new store, contributing to its success.
Deener, Andrew. “The Origins of the Food Desert: Urban Inequality as Infrastructural Exclusion.” Social Forces 95, no. 3 (2017): 1285–1309. https://bit.ly/4hVSd2b
In this journal article, author Andrew Deener provides an in-depth history of Philadelphia’s transition into a food desert through infrastructural exclusion. As he explains, throughout the 20th century, the suburbanization of our country and improvements in transportation allowed grocery stores to discover a more profitable business model. Companies began opening large facilities in suburbs where residents had higher disposable income, and rent prices were discounted compared to urban areas. Grocers were also able to buy and store large quantities of items for a discounted price, which was reflected on consumer price tags. Smaller stores located in center cities could not compete with these larger supermarkets’ prices and product variety, eventually leading to closures and the isolation of inner-city residents from retail access. This source provides context that will allow me to introduce how urban food desert conditions came to be and also help explain the origins of inequality possessed by residents of the Philadelphia and New York City regions. These patterns of business continue to disservice modern urban societies and explain why solutions to improving urban food deserts are still developing.
Elbel, Brian, Alyssa Moran, L Beth Dixon, Kamila Kiszko, Jonathan Cantor, Courtney Abrams, and Tod Mijanovich. “Assessment of a Government-Subsidized Supermarket in a High-Need Area on Household Food Availability and Children’s Dietary Intakes.” Public Health Nutrition 18, no. 15 (2015): 2881–90. https://bit.ly/3DEcKcF
This crucial research study compares the dietary habits of the children living in two South Bronx food deserts, Morrisania, where my targeted store is located, and Highbridge, which has yet to receive a new government-subsidized supermarket. This research reveals that very little improvement in the availability or consumption of healthy products occurs in the Morrisania households, exposing the idea that simply making fresh foods available is not enough to change the dietary well-being of food desert residents. This source is crucial because the data and conclusions published in the paper strongly exhibit that the Bronx store has failed to improve the dietary well-being of the surrounding community—a key piece of evidence for the base of my argument. This source also portrays how the Associated Market in the South Bronx can be used as a benchmark for comparison with Jeff Brown’s Philadelphia ShopRite.
Kolb, Kenneth H. “What We Got Wrong” In Retail Inequality: Reframing the Food Desert Debate. Oakland California: University of California Press, 2022. 1-17 https://bit.ly/43mG2XL
In this book chapter, author Kenneth H. Kolb describes how scholars, politicians, and the public have incorrectly interpreted the impact that new grocery stores can have in a food desert. Most people hold the misconception that simply shortening one’s distance to healthy foods will improve their diet; meanwhile, it generally only shortens their distance to the same foods they usually eat. It is crucial for grocers to understand that proximity is not the only factor considered by customers when they choose what foods to buy. Residents of food deserts typically struggle with other disadvantages such as poverty and lack of nutrition education. My readers likely have the same misconceptions that Kolb warns his own about. Using this source to grasp the view of the general public will be helpful in building the framework for an introduction. His warning also sheds some light on why the grocery store in the South Bronx has not been able to address and improve the diet of the surrounding community.
Nolen, Erin. Jeremy Everett, Doug McDurham, Kathy Krey, Julia F. Waity, Leslie H. Hossfeld, and E. Brooke Kelly. “Together at the Table: The Power of Public-Private Partnerships to Alleviate Hunger.” In Food and Poverty, 179-190. Vanderbilt University Press, 2018. https://bit.ly/4bkOgS7
In this book chapter, the authors explain the benefit of public-private partnerships and how they can achieve success in addressing social issues. Here the issue at hand is student hunger, but the collaborations devised to combat this are nearly identical to efforts used in bringing grocery stores into underserved communities. The authors emphasize that no organization without the knowledge and expertise of specific community members can address the multiple components of any problem. Instead, coordination of resources achieved through team member collaboration will contribute to fixing the problem at stake. At my Philadelphia site, the state, non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs, as well as community members, worked together to devise a successful plan to finance, open, and run local stores. This exact plan has been recognized and replicated by former First Lady Michelle Obama and serves as a model across the nation. The context that this source provides will help lay the groundwork for discussing the success behind the Philadelphia stores and how the public-private partnership in the South Bronx has still fallen short.
Walker, Renee E., Christopher R. Keane, and Jessica G. Burke. “Disparities and Access to Healthy Food in the United States: A Review of Food Deserts Literature.” Health & Place 16, no. 5 (2010): 876–84. https://bit.ly/41CWiCu
This article reviews previous literature in order to identify the consensus between researchers on the topic of food deserts around the year 2010. The article shines a spotlight on urban areas more so than it does on rural ones. This generalized review provides basic yet crucial information about access to supermarkets, the racial disparities in food deserts, the socioeconomic status of food desert residents, and the characteristics of food stores in urban areas—among a long list of other factors. Researchers have generally identified that nutritious items and full-service supermarkets are harder to come by in areas where impoverished people of color inhabit. In turn, they have small stores where product variety is limited, and the prices soar above those found in more suburban stores. This source provides me a reliable understanding of food desert research at the time in which my targeted stores opened. It also provides key groundwork information about my general topic. This source will help construct introductory aspects of my many different points of discussion, mostly within the factors mentioned above.
Wright, James D., Amy M. Donley, Marie C. Gualtieri, and Sara M. Strickhouser. “Food Deserts: What Is the Problem? What Is the Solution?” Society (New Brunswick) 53, no. 2 (2016): 171–81. https://bit.ly/41D3X3I
In this article, James Wright et al. summarize much of the recent research conducted surrounding food deserts but uniquely have been able to identify a consensus surrounding food choices and dietary well-being. They review recent case studies, pointing out that improving access to healthier options in food deserts does not mean that people will buy and consume them. Instead, stores and grocers need to understand that cultural preferences, education levels, and traditional habits are more important in considering how to improve people’s dietary well-being. Wright et al. also point out external factors such as the inability to physically or financially access these fresh foods, as definitions surrounding food deserts are still wanting. By the USDA’s standards, a food desert is an area where the poverty rate is above 20% and at least a third of the population lives a mile from the nearest large grocery store. If you are impoverished, you likely do not have access to a vehicle, may have children to take care of, and may have poor health; walking nearly a mile to get groceries and carrying them home can seem like a tough feat under any of these conditions. This analysis will be able to serve as a strong reference in context to my overall argument about why merely proximity will not change the dietary well-being of people living in food deserts. This is exactly what has occurred in the South Bronx, and these authors provide factors as to why. This source also specifically cites primary research conducted on the South Bronx store at the forefront of my research.
Image Analysis:
Customers leave an Associated Supermarket on Thursday in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx. The store was built with more than $400,000 of city-funded incentives in an attempt to combat the unavailability of fresh produce in the neighborhood. Credit: Bryan Thomas for The New York Times
Images have the unique ability to capture the story of a place and time that other primary sources may not be able to. The image portrayed above was captured by Bryan Thomas for The New York Times and was a valuable addition to a publication written by reporter Margot Sanger-Katz. (1) In the publication, this image was captioned with the following text: “Customers leave an Associated Supermarket on Thursday in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx. The store was built with more than $400,000 of city-funded incentives in an attempt to combat the unavailability of fresh produce in the neighborhood.” The image was published in May of 2015, approximately four years after its opening. This exact Associated Market, where the image was captured, is the South Bronx store that my report highlights in comparison to the Fox Street ShopRite in North Philadelphia. The Philadelphia ShopRite serves as a triumphant template for restoring food deserts across the country, while the Associated Market has been notoriously highlighted by researchers for its inability to improve the local community’s diet and well-being. This image includes many creative aspects that help support my overall argument that merely placing a store in a food desert will not suffice in improving the residents diet and well-being; instead, understanding and addressing the multitude of inequality factors within these areas will better the community.
An image can seem so simple and so unsuspecting, but completing a detailed analysis can reveal so many hidden messages and meanings. One of the first noticeable aspects of this image is the contrast between the store and its city surroundings. The new store is visibly appealing; it looks up-to-date and generally up to the mark—the windows are clean, the promotional posters reflect the current holiday season, and they are in good condition. The store’s title sign and other appendages seem to be in good, working condition as well. On the other hand, the surrounding street is generally dirty, the landscaping towards the right of the image is a bit unkempt, and there is minimal but apparent garbage on the street. Most importantly, the bright yellow newspaper box taking up much of the bottom right corner is dilapidated, rusted, and seems to be broken. The photographer could have easily positioned their camera to remove this from the forefront, but I believe they decided not to as it symbolizes the overall condition of the neglected surrounding area.
The locals rightfully deserve a well-kept store of this quality, but this store may not entirely fit in; it needs to have qualities that cater to the local community. Their access to fresh produce and other healthy options may no longer be neglected, but what other factors continue to be overlooked? Can the impoverished locals afford to buy the products being sold? How will the locals improve their nutrition education and familiarity with healthier options? Are people reasonably able to walk to the store or have access via public transportation? These are all questions that need to be answered by the FRESH program that is responsible for implementing the store.
These questions lead me to an analysis of another crucial aspect of this image, the physical attributes of the community members who are patronizing the store. All five of the depicted persons are of color, a small but evident sample of the community’s racial demographics. The half-mile radius directly surrounding the store is 60% Hispanic and 33% Black—a factor that intensifies the inequality occurring in the area. (2) It is no secret that people of color are neglected more so than their white counterparts, and they experience a multitude of disparities when it comes to their environment. By capturing locals within the frame, the photographer is able to highlight the type of people, poor and of color, who typically reside in food deserts and need assistance when it comes to access to basic necessities such as fresh food.
The physical condition of the women in this image also represent an often overlooked aspect of living in urban areas. Urban residents rely on their athleticism—often walking where they need to go, or when using public transportation, using their strength to carry belongings, such as grocery bags. If you look closely in the reflection of the window behind the young boy’s head, you can see a public bus, a good sign that a stop is near the store, with the ability to help locals overcome some physical obstacles. Yet, there is an older woman on the far right of the picture pulling a grocery carrier that could be difficult to lift into the bus or drag to the nearest stop and back to her home. As a young, healthy woman who walks nearly a mile for groceries, I myself can find the trek challenging. The woman second from the right is overweight, a physical challenge that can make walking to get groceries a difficult task. Additionally, the woman second from the right in the pink shirt has a brace on her left arm, which limits her carrying capabilities. Residents of food deserts have higher obesity rates and other restricting health conditions compared to suburban areas. (3) It’s not surprising that a lack of access to fresh food correlates with a lack of access to health services. All of these factors contribute to the choices people make about where they shop but also what they are buying and the quantity of it.
Lastly, an important aspect of this image is the significance of the signage in the window. This signage is placed in the foreground and is angled to hold more prominence than other attributes of the store. They are responsible for helping the image’s viewers and the store’s local foot traffic get an idea of the products that can be found inside the store and their prices. These marketing and sales tactics sway consumers’ choices and can have a strong impact on shopping habits. This is especially true in impoverished neighborhoods where sale items can be the only option for many. The residents within a half-mile radius around this store are in the 95th percentile of poverty in the United States. (4)
The image was taken around the holiday of Cinco de Mayo, which may explain why there is a prominent push to advertise rice and beans, two staple foods in Mexican cuisine. Aside from that, a poster promoting sugary Kool-Aid juice boxes holds a premium spot in the window. Other household staples such as sugar, coffee, and bath tissue fill the window space, but there is an absence of the promotion of more fresh and healthy options. The only visible advertisement that can correlate to this would be a photo of canned corn—another staple in Mexican cuisine. The community would benefit from sales on fresh produce or even more canned or frozen fruits and vegetables. Healthier options should be emphasized or showcased in unique ways, as people who have only previously lived or shopped in food deserts are unfamiliar with certain products that the suburbs have continuous access to. One’s lack of nutrition education can often be overlooked yet holds a prominent role in what people choose to consume.
This image holds a lot of significance as it is able to tell a story about the Associated Market in the South Bronx and the patrons that shop there. There are so many complex layers when it comes to understanding the experience of living in a food desert and determining how inequalities can be properly addressed. The impoverished people of color who live in this area have historically been neglected by the city and programs aimed to support their inequalities. Now that the store is available to them, there are still signs that it is not having as great of an impact as it should be on the residents dietary well-being. The image has importantly portrayed the contrast between the new store and, despite its presence, the ongoing neglect of the surrounding area—symbolizing the store’s inability to fit in with the needs of the local community. The image has also been able to capture the demographics and conditions of the patrons of the store, specifically how people of color, who have historically been treated as inferior, are the common customers who continue to face financial and physical barriers in their attempt to access healthier options. Lastly, the image has been able to give insight into the popular products in the store and the lack of intent it has on incentivizing healthy options to customers in order to improve their diets and overall health.
(1) Sanger-Katz, Margot. “Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It” The New York Times, May 8, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-easy-access-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.html?searchResultPosition=62
(2) “Environmental and Socioeconomic Indicators Data” 0.5 Mile Ring Centered at 206 E 167th St, Bronx, NY 10456. From The Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Analysis Multisite (EJAM), accessed March 2025. https://ejamapi-84652557241.us-central1.run.app/report?lon=-73.916531&lat=40.833814&buffer=.5
(3) Walker, Renee E., Christopher R. Keane, and Jessica G. Burke. “Disparities and Access to Healthy Food in the United States: A Review of Food Deserts Literature.” Health & Place 16, no. 5 (2010): 876–84. https://bit.ly/41CWiCu
(4) “Environmental and Socioeconomic Indicators Data” EPA’s EJAM.
