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May 06, 2023

Food deserts are hurting Philadelphians. It’s time for new solutions.

For more than half a century, Philadelphia, like most big cities in America, has

For more than half a century, Philadelphia, like most big cities in America, has been struggling to solve its food desert problem. That's what you call it when a neighborhood no longer has a store its residents can depend on to buy fresh, healthy food.

The simplest explanation for a disparity you won't see in affluent neighborhoods is cost. One study concluded healthy diets rich in vegetables, fruits, fish, and nuts cost about $550 more per person each year than diets rich in processed foods, meats, and refined grains. Stores with a bottom line to meet shun products their customers can't afford.

The consequences of this extend past figuring out what's for dinner. People who don't have access to healthy foods are more likely to develop a wide range of diseases, which have lifelong consequences. If you want to understand why there are often sharp health disparities between low- and high-income areas, food deserts are one explanation.

The city's entrepreneurial approaches to watering its food deserts have mostly failed. Progress Plaza, the brainchild of civil rights leader the Rev. Leon H. Sullivan in North Philadelphia, included an A&P store when it opened in 1968. The store faced financial issues despite being operated by what was then America's largest supermarket chain. A&P folded in 2015, but the store's current operator, the New Jersey-based Fresh Grocer chain, has similar concerns.

» READ MORE: Fighting Food Apartheid: Black entrepreneurs and leaders fight 60 years of retail redlining to bring supermarkets in North Philly

Such issues, outlined in an Annie E. Casey Foundation study of food deserts, aren't unique to Philadelphia. For one, there is the lower pur­chas­ing pow­er of cus­tomers, some enrolled in the Sup­ple­men­tal Nutri­tion Assis­tance Pro­gram, whose ability to buy food may change from month to month. Stores also may pay higher insurance fees and security costs due to real or perceived higher crime rates.

With supermarket chains shunning them and the mom-and-pop stores of yesteryear no longer in existence, many residents of lower-income communities have no alternative but to buy food from small corner stores, convenience markets, bodegas, and fast-food restaurants, which only rarely include fresh fruits and vegetables.

The pandemic only made the situation worse by forcing the closure of small shops and stores whose customer bases collapsed. While those stores are unlikely to be replaced by large-scale retailers, some food desert solutions being tried in other cities might work in Philadelphia if it would look beyond entrepreneurship as the answer.

Baltimore, for example, has worked closely with Joel Gittelsohn, a medical anthropologist at Johns Hopkins University, who has conducted six studies since 2005 of what he prefers to call food swamps. "There's a lot of food available, but it's high fat, high sugar, high sodium," Gittelsohn told Politico.

Gittelsohn has helped carryout restaurants modify their menus to avoid deep frying and corner groceries stock healthier foods. He points out that many small stores stock junk food and sugary drinks because they have informal agreements with "the potato chip guy, the ice cream guy" who "give them incentives: free display racks, freezers, reduced prices, free products. But there is no such system if they want to stock low-fat milk or fresh produce."

» READ MORE: What is food insecurity? How Philly navigates hunger, food deserts, and access to good food.

Working with a nonprofit grocery operated by the Salvation Army, Gittelsohn has created an app that allows small groceries to pool their buying power to purchase produce from wholesalers whose minimum purchase requirements are typically too high. He's also working with Morgan State University, a historically Black college, to start a pilot program with Lyft that will offer $2.50 rides to the grocery store for residents of lower-income neighborhoods.

Baltimore provides property tax credits to supermarkets in designated neighborhoods that meet requirements for the amount of healthy food they sell, and the city's health department has created a virtual supermarket web program that allows seniors to order groceries online for delivery to designated locations near their homes.

SNAP also has an online purchasing program whose Pennsylvania participants include Aldi's, BJs, Sam's Club, ShopRite, Sprouts, Wegmans, Walmart, and Whole Foods. But the federal equivalent of this program was put in the 2014 federal farm bill as a pilot and has never been made permanent. Until that happens, cities like Philadelphia should consider following Baltimore's lead to make online shopping a viable alternative to bring fresh food to food deserts.

Nearly 40 million Americans — 12.8% of the U.S. population — live in low-income areas with limited grocery-shopping choices. Waiting for a supermarket chain to come to the rescue has proved futile for too many neighborhoods. Instead, local governments must work with nonprofits, public policy organizations, health departments, and local store operators to develop feasible alternatives to bring fresh food into more homes. The way is there; all that's needed is the will.