Beginning in 2018, the Richmond Food Justice Alliance, partnering with the Richmond City Health District, started the F.E.E.D. The Culture campaign, asking the communities of Richmond what policy changes they wanted to see the city make. The work was informed by studies and reports from Harvard and other municipalities around the country (1). The issues that Richmonders face are seen throughout the country in similar ways but under different conditions; what works in Chicago won’t necessarily work for Richmond. However, looking at what has been tried elsewhere is a great start at talking about what might work in Richmond. As we continue the work of F.E.E.D. the Culture, we will be digging into the policy suggestions that were most popular to critically consider what affects the policies may or may not have.

One of the most selected policy implementations was to “give businesses tax breaks to encourage fresh food sales” (1). This may include any place that sells food, but is intended to focus on corner stores, bodegas, and gas stations. The idea would be to financially incentivize store owners devoting more shelf space to fresh fruits and vegetables, giving customers options for fresh food they may not otherwise have.

This type of policy has become popular around the country since around 2010, during Obama’s first term when first lady Michelle Obama Let’s Move campaign to address childhood obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), food deserts are “areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet” (2). These geographic areas where basic resources don’t exist were caused by the legacy of segregation, and to highlight the severity of the conditions, many people refer to the situation as food apartheid instead.

Since the problem was first put in front of the nation, millions of dollars have been used by federal, state, and local governments to eradicate food deserts by making sure that fresh fruits or vegetables are sold in more locations. This is often difficult for many small business owners, because they would need to invest in refrigeration and devote more space to perishable foods that require more work and make less profit, so financial support makes it possible.

Just a few months ago, California announced its 20 million dollar Healthy Refrigeration Grant program to do just this (3). The program offers grants to stores and organizations, and uses corner stores and small markets to expand access to fresh foods for residents. “Refrigeration isn’t the only change: Stores can use the grants to add signage, advertise fresh products, and leverage double up programs, which allow customers to double their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.” The idea is that is might “bridge a gap between what store owners want to offer their communities and what they are able to do on their own” (3).

The program has been taken up by many recipients and similar programs have been implemented in other major cities. Many of the initiatives are recent and so it is hard to know what impact they have made so far, but when looking at the results of some older programs, there are trends worth noting.

In nearly every case of these types of programs, making fresh food available for sale where it wasn’t previously, improvements are found in perceived healthy food accessibility and perceptions of corner stores (4). Perceptions are important because they can change mindsets and attitudes. It can lead to a transition of the owners' perceptions of themselves as gatekeepers for a healthy community, making them feel more responsible for the issues (5).

However, what is also evident from these types of changes is that very little change is often found in store patronage, purchasing, or consumption of fruits and vegetables (4).

Just because fruits and vegetables are on shelves, does not mean that people have the money, time, energy, or interest in buying them. The similar Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative “moderately improved residents’ perceptions of food accessibility. However, it did not lead to changes in reported fruit and vegetable intake or body mass index” (6)

But sometimes it does work. The recent Baltimore Healthy Stores program was the first of its kind to see positive changes at the customer level (7).

What is made evident by these different experiences is that there are many factors that must be considers, and many changes that must be made for communities to see real change. For instance, localized hikes in fast food prices over a 20-year period tracked with reduced risk of obesity and diabetes in affected communities (8). Focus cannot be on geographic location and corner stores alone. There must be consideration on the individual level of all the other factors involved in peoples dietary decisions. To focus on just making fresh fruits vegetables available will likely not be enough by itself.

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Sources:

F.E.E.D. The Culture Deep Dive: Tax Breaks for Healthy Food

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