First lady, grocers vow to build stores in ‘food deserts’

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

Supermarkets joined with first lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday in a pledge to build stores in poor neighborhoods that have historically lacked access to fresh groceries, part of her signature effort to combat childhood obesity.

Participating retailers include Wal-Mart, the country’s largest grocer, Walgreens and Supervalu and regional supermarkets such as Brown’s Super Stores in Philadelphia and Calhoun Foods in Alabama and Tennessee. Together, they promised to open more than 500 stores that will employ tens of thousands of people.

“The commitments that you all are making today have the potential to be a game changer for our kids and for our communities all across this country,” Obama said during a news conference at the White House.

Traditionally, grocers have been wary of opening stores in low-income areas, creating food deserts in many urban and rural markets. A report released this month by the Food Marketing Institute, a trade group, said the costs of security, transportation and employee training are often higher in these areas. In addition, customers may have difficulty getting to the stores or may be too dispersed to justify the investment.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/first-lady-grocers-vow-to-build-stores-in-food-deserts/2011/07/20/gIQA9LHRQI_story.html

[femmocrat]

1. Please, oh please, build one here!

We are in a rural food desert with a Walmart as our only supermarket, about ten miles away. Yet, we are only about three miles from a huge Supervalu distribution center. Go figure.

[DissedByBush]

8. I don't think she's talking about you

More like high-crime inner city areas where the grocers are likely to get robbed so much they close down anyway after this experiment.

I don't have a problem finding fresh and good food, I just have a problem with the prices.

It cost far less than this to feed us healthy when I lived in Germany.

[No Elephants]

18. The article says that's pretty much exactly who she is talking about, among others.

"A 2009 report by the Agriculture Department defined a food desert as a low-income neighborhood where the nearest grocery store is at least a mile away, or 10 miles away in rural communities. About 23.5 million people — or 8.4 percent of Americans — live in these areas. "

[JDPriestly]

14. Walmart is leading this whole thing.

Walmart wants to get into inner city Los Angeles.

We who live in inner city Los Angeles do not want Walmart. Costco -- great. But not Walmart.

[No Elephants]

15. What is it with Wallyworld and Democratic First Ladies?

[midnight]

2. I wonder what the finical incentive is if Wal-Mart is participating?

[FLPanhandle]

3. Wal-mart?

I guess the local stores will go belly up now and since these are poor neighborhoods, the existing small stores are probably minority owned.

[juajen]

9. I believe the costs are too high, no matter who owns the stores.

The problem is accessibility. I had a child who lived in NYC for five years. They had to travel to get to a Sears and then take a cab if the had large packages. Shopping in NYC and environs is difficult at best, because the shops know you have little choices. Big box stores can help even out the expense. I know. I won't even shop at WalMart, but I have a lot of other choices. These people don't. I hope this does make it better, even if it's WalMart.

[PoliticAverse]

4. Maybe this will help, maybe not. See...

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-food-deserts-20110712,0,537936.story

"Instead, income — and proximity to fast-food restaurants — were the strongest factors in food choice."

[Psephos]

5. I also saw this. It should be widely read.

If we're going to address the problem, we need to replace assumptions with evidence-based approaches, or the solution won't solve much.

[No Elephants]

16. Trouble with evidence sometimes, is that there seems to be enough of it to go

around for whatever position you want or need to support. Same thing with studies.

Seems as though people find whatever they're inclined to find.

[No Elephants]

19. The idea is that we are in an epidemic and are trying to cut into habits that cause the epidemic,

be they being too sedentary or not eating enough fresh veggies.

You can't ask people to eat more fresh veggies if they have no reasonable way of getting any fresh veggies in the first place.

[Igel]

24. "Ask" isn't the problem.

Getting compliance, that's the problem.

The assumption is that there's this huge unmet demand for fresh vegetables and fruits. Nobody, somehow, has realized that they could turn a profit by opening a fruit and vegetable stand. No 7/11 or Valero has realized that if you remove the malt liquor and put in broccoli and stringbeans they'd make the same amount of money--or even more, because of heavier foot traffic.

They assume that all the small businessmen in the areas are simply congenitally idiots, foolishly providing things like snack food, soda, and beer--stuff that nobody actually wants--instead of organically grown arugula.

But they're not idiots. There'd be some demand, but not the demand that there'd be if the poor urban areas were populated by health-conscious college graduates. But veggies have lower profit margins, small stores need *higher* profit margins since they have less gross revenue, and they often have higher costs due to higher insurance, more thorough alarm systems and window/door protection, and "shrinkage." Moreover, even with income lower education usually translates to crappier diet and poorer health, meaning that there's probably good demand for snack foods and beer.

Hey. If wishes were fishes we'd obviously all have diets high in omega-3 fatty acids. (Or we could just collect purslane, a common urban weed that's absurdly healthy for you.)

[Xtraneous]

6. This is the death knoll for fresh food!

That's it, put these monsters in the middle of urban America and you might as well burn the rest of the farms down and feed poisons directly to the poor. The only answer for "food deserts" is urban gardening. Time to bring it back to the source, teach the young generation how to depend on themselves and inspire community. Grow non-altered strains of vegetables and fruits and fill tracts of unused land with food-producing plants.

This is where the future SHOULD be...
http://www.hantzfarmsdetroit.com/introduction.html

[Retrograde]

31. As much as I enjoy gardening, urban gardens are not the only answer

By all means encourage everyone to grown some of their own food, even if it's just a pot of herbs. But it's not a solution for everyone and everything. It requires time, land and commitment; sure, we can encourage cities to turn vacant lots into gardens and provide training and basic materials, but this is not going to make everyone self-sufficient.

There is no one solution. One of the best things about encouraging local urban gardens is that it can introduce people to what real, fresh produce can taste like, and get them to demand the same from grocers.

[ixion]

7. we need regional food production, not more 'super' stores

[shanti]

10. walmart....

:eyes:

[wundermaus]

11. community gardens are much more needed...

Than the crap they sell in grocery stores pretending to be food.
Community gardens heal and nurture communities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_gardening
Community gardens empower residents to take back their neighborhoods; to patrol and occupy the public areas.
Community gardens feed the people wholesome, fresh food - vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and even eggs!
Community gardens promote healthy outdoor exercise and social bond building.
http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/parks/ComGarden.aspx

That's what is needed, Mrs. First Lady.
A victory garden just like the one you started at the white house.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html

[Igel]

25. I live 1.5 miles from a Sam's Club.

Beyond that I have to go about 4-5 miles to a grocery store. I'll overlook Valero and gas-station stores.

It's the one big drawback to this neighborhood. It's suburban, but mostly with ex-urban residents.

The diet is fairly "low-income urban", from the frozen pizza boxes I see in the trash and the McDonald's hamburger wrappers.

It's not like a high-density urban area where if people wanted, the best they could manage would be some container plants on a balcony or in a window. Still, even that's doable--and I know people who, in apts. insist on growing their own herbs in the window, or even radishes.

Not here. Nope. The back yards are covered with Bermuda grass. The school kids germinate plants in their classrooms, take them home to show mommy or daddy, and they're thrown away. Grow food? Not gonna happen.

Maybe if they had somebody else's property to grow the plants on, but not on their own.

[wundermaus]

28. Yup, thanks for the reality check.

I think we are in an economic depression for most of the low income folks of our country right now.
Providing "grocery stores" in low income areas is better than liquor stores, I guess...
but they sell tons of junk food for the tiny amount of wholesome food they sell.
Most low income folk buy crappy food because it is convenient to obtain and a fortune is spent to brain wash them to buy it.

I think growing your own food in a revolutionary act.

Neelam Sharma: Food Not Lawns in Los Angeles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXFzWdGNPKg

Gardening in a Waist High Raised Bed Garden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tQbGud35N4

[zalinda]

12. Now, if they only could AFFORD the food. n/t

[bread_and_roses]

21. exactly what I was thinking....(n/t)

[JDPriestly]

13. Los Angeles does not welcome Walmart.

This looks like an attempt to circumvent that fact.

We do not want any Walmarts in our city. No thanks.

[No Elephants]

20. It's like talking to a wal.

I gave it a shot.

[alp227]

30. there is a Walmart in LA

at 4101 Crenshaw Blvd. And several in the county.

http://www.walmart.com/storeLocator/ca_storefinder_results.do?serviceName=&rx_title=com.wm.www.apps.storelocator.page.serviceLink.title.default&rx_dest=%2Findex.gsp&sfrecords=50&sfsearch_single_line_address=Los+Angeles%2C+CA

[No Elephants]

17. Headline and lead sound as though Mrs. Obama will be building stores.

Or at least hiring folks to build stores for her.

Is this really her plan, or do we just have more stupid newspaper writing? My guess is the latter.

[psychopomp]

22. For those who don't know, there are many places where you can buy a 40 and some menthols

but not milk or green veggies. It's great that the first lady is giving this some long-overdue attention.

[WatsonT]

23. But there are reasons they don't open stores there

Unless they do something to get rid of those very valid economic concerns to businesses these promises are going to mean nothing.

[Igel]

26. PR.

The first lady has always enjoyed a bit of a bully pulpit herself, and they've used it for different purposes.

The stores, like banks before them, know that they can avoid some problems by engaging in community relations and PR work. They're not exactly forced to do it, but there are good reasons to engage in them.

Been there, done that. Sat on a board and we told or encouraged the management to do things that didn't show up with a profit margin on the P&L statement but which we were convinced either kept the P from eroding or helped minimize the L. At times we believed that we'd increase profits with more community good will, and even managed to fend of criticism that might have been damaging.

On the other hand, perhaps the board members are divorced enough from their critical faculties and think the stores will, overall, produce a net profit greater than they can get through a demand deposit account.

[KamaAina]

27. More farmers' markets!

The nearest one to me, for instance, would be well over a half-hour train ride each way. This in a county that still has significant agriculture going on in its less developed southern portion!

[anamandujano]

29. Good cop / bad cop scenario taking shape.

Her husband is gutting programs which will lead to more suffering for the poor. This little bit of PR makes it look like she's leading the way to help the problem.

Reminds me of Barbara Bush announcing she believed in choice while the prez was doing all he could to take it away. I believe Laura Bush did same. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.