Success in Pennsylvania Stirs Hope for Food Deserts

Mar 15, 2010 12:00 PM, By MICHAEL GARRY

Food deserts are hot.

About 23.5 million people in the U.S. live in these low-income, urban and rural communities that are more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Many food deserts have languished for decades without ready access to fresh foods, largely overlooked by the media, the government and the food industry.

But a blend of factors — including a successful Pennsylvania store financing program, the growing problem of obesity, rising health care costs and the attention of the White House — has suddenly thrust the food deserts issue into the national spotlight.

“We're very much at a place of great momentum,” said Judith Bell, president of PolicyLink, Oakland, Calif., a nonprofit institute heavily involved in this issue.

“Awareness of the food desert issue has exploded,” noted John Weidman, deputy executive director of the Food Trust, Philadelphia, another non-profit focused on the issue.

The Food Marketing Institute and the National Grocers Association are on board. “Our industry is committed to its role of learning about the unique issues facing a community and working directly with that community to overcome the barriers to entry that may exist,” said Jennifer Hatcher, group vice president of government relations, FMI.

The six-year-old Pennsylvania program, known as the Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI), has helped develop 83 new or improved grocery stores — generally independent operators — in underserved urban and rural communities throughout the Keystone State. It has increased access to healthy food for 400,000 people, while creating or retaining 4,860 jobs. Out of the 83 stores, there have been six failures, half in the first year, mostly small, start-up businesses, said Patricia Smith, director of special initiatives, the Reinvestment Fund, Philadelphia, which helped orchestrate the program.

Drawing from both public and private financing, the FFFI is being cited as a model for helping supermarkets overcome the economic barriers that have kept them out of food deserts. (See “Raising the Money,” Page 25.) “It shows the food deserts problem is largely solvable,” said Weidman. Two independent food retailers who have opened stores in inner-city Philadelphia, Jeffrey Brown and Patrick Burns, have become nationally recognized ambassadors for the program.

Last month, President Obama adopted the FFFI as the template for a national program, the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which earmarks more than $400 million for the food desert issue. First lady Michelle Obama referenced the FFFI in the rollout of her “Let's Move” campaign to reduce childhood obesity nationwide. Pointing to the connection between obesity rates and low access to fresh foods, she would like to see most food deserts eradicated in seven years. Food deserts are also linked to other health problems such as diabetes and heart disease, according to the Food Trust.

“By far, the most impressive progress [in addressing food deserts] has been made in Pennsylvania,” said Bell, whose PolicyLink organization helped develop the FFFI along with the Food Trust and The Reinvestment Fund. “The FFFI is at the core of what the president has proposed and what the first lady is pushing for. We all believe we are looking at a solution for what has been a vexing problem in this country for decades. This is one of those rare moments when we have agreement about a solution that can be implemented.”