Author’s note: Statistics show several neighborhoods across the city of Wilmington suffering from a lack of access to affordable, healthy food. These areas are known as food deserts. The USDA defines food deserts as “census tracts” (neighborhoods) that are both low-income and have low-access to grocery stores or supermarkets.
For the purpose of this series, low-income is defined as either 20 percent or more of the population living in poverty or their median family income is less than 80 percent of the median income for their area and low-access means at least 500 people in the area are living one mile from a grocery store in an urban area.
According to the New Hanover County Manager Chris Coudriet, approximately 16,000 Wilmington residents live in a food desert.
This series seeks to understand the origins of food deserts, define who suffers from this issue and what experts say can be done about it.
WILMINGTON — The commonly assumed solution to the food desert crisis is to just add a grocery store to a census tract and the issue will go away. Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that.
According to Jill Waity, associate professor of sociology at UNCW specializing in food insecurity, the true solution comes from having community buy-in.
“Engaging with the public is the only way to ensure that whatever grocery store is brought into an area will accommodate the people who live there,” Waity said.
Sarah Daniels, executive director of Feast Down East said, “We need to be addressing very targeted issues with permanent brick and mortar grocery stores in the affected areas. We also need to be looking at empowering people in these communities to speak up and bring attention to their issues.”
However, not every grocery store will work in a food desert. It has to be the right grocery store.
Tidal Creek’s downtown aspirations
Back in 2015, Tidal Creek was considering the move from its Oleander location to one in the downtown area.
When explaining its motivations for the move, Tidal Creek stated through a press release, “There is a need for a full-service grocer so much so that some of the area qualifies as a food desert, an amazing opportunity to provide a service to the community.”
However, in Feb. 2017, Tidal Creek went through a change in management and announced that it would not be pursuing a move to the downtown area due to financial challenges.
“It has long been our hope that we could serve the needs of our community in a more direct way, and moving or expanding with the second location to downtown would eventually allow us to do that,” the press release stated. “At this time, we will be continuing operations from our current location in order to become financially stable while still pursuing the possibility for expansion to downtown Wilmington.”
Even if Tidal Creek had decided to move, would it have been the best store for the underserved downtown population?
“It certainly would have been good if a store like Tidal Creek had gone into one of the downtown food deserts, but you have to think about how accessible that type of store is to the general population,” Waity said. “Are residents familiar with how co-ops work? Are they selling culturally appropriate foods that residents will want to eat?”
The truth is, not all food desert residents have the resources–or desire–to pay a premium for local, farm-raised and organic food.
The cost of eating healthy
Even if a grocery store is introduced into a food desert, local residents still may not shop there because of the significant price gap between fresh fruits and vegetables and processed foods.
“We have to make food more affordable, increase the amounts for our food stamps and educate people on their purchasing habits,” Daniels said.
Studies show that healthier diet patterns high in fresh fruits and vegetables, fish and nuts cost more than unhealthy diets full of processed foods, meats and refined grains. On average, a day’s worth of the most healthy diet patterns cost about $1.50 more per day than the least healthy ones.
“Even low-income people will make an effort to travel to somewhere like Walmart, because it’s cheaper. People are shopping on price, which seems to be more of a driver than distance,” Waity said.
First up, the downtown community
The City of Wilmington hosted a public input meeting last Fall as an attempt to solicit community buy-in for recommended changes to the downtown neighborhood.
The meeting was “the first in a series of small-area plans designed to supplement and implement the comprehensive Greater Downtown Plan,” according to Senior Planner Christine Hughes. “This plan is a collaborative process based on citizen participation, designed to bring stakeholders together to improve neighborhoods and ensure a better future.”
Approximately 50 people attended the initial meeting and offered opinions on various aspects of downtown life.
The lack of grocery store options for the downtown region was one of the popular responses for what would improve the greater downtown area, with 75 percent of respondents disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with the statement, “I have adequate access to fresh food within walking distance of my home.”
At the subsequent meetings in the neighborhoods of Historic Wilmington, Downtown Core, North Waterfront, Northside, Brooklyn Arts, Love Grove, Hilton, Soda Pop, Carolina Heights/Winoca Terrace, The Bottom, Dry Pond, Carolina Place/Ardmore, Delgado, all surveys highlighted the lack of grocery stores as a problem.
“Following the public input portion of the planning process, a draft plan will be presented to the Planning Commission and then to City Council,” Hughes said.
Food deserts: an appendix for readers
Check back Tuesday for part three: From mobile farmers’ markets to public transportation: local organizations create solutions to eliminate food deserts
