GNN: Drive-Thru Food Pantry Serves 1000’s in a California Food Desert with Nutritious Groceries (2024)

FAQs

Why are there no supermarkets in food deserts? ›

Grocery store owners avoid opening up shop in food deserts because market research suggests more affluent areas are more profitable. Some common characteristics across food deserts—smaller populations, lower rates of employment, higher rates of poverty—are the same characteristics that scare off retailers.

The official USDA definition of a food desert is an area that lacks a grocery store.

This is the Seva Collective food pantry in Santa Ana, California, a food desert — a geographic area where residents struggle to consistently access nutritious food.

Food deserts exist in both urban and rural communities. According to Verywell Health, over one-fifth of people living in urban areas and one-third of people in rural areas are in food deserts. In both environments, food deserts limit access to healthy foods, including fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Unpurchased food is donated to food banks and other charities ― in FY 2022, Walmart reported having donated more than 696 million pounds of food in the U.S.

Some researchers criticize the primary focus of current food desert frameworks - lack of retail access - as a one-dimensional over-simplification of food security and access issues that fails to address structural issues to reduce unhealthy food consumption and diet disparities.

Rural food deserts occur in areas where grocery stores with affordable healthy foods are more than five miles away. The term food desert also includes areas where the goods are priced too high for people to purchase within their budget.

Many contemporary food justice scholars, advocates, and communities find the term food desert inaccurate, misleading, and harmful. Instead, they advocate for the use of food apartheid because of its ability to address the underlying systems of oppression that have led to the disparities in food security.

Areas with a large number of minorities, low-income people, and no reliable public transportation are more likely to be food deserts. According to the USDA's most recent food access research report, nearly 40 million Americans live in low-income and low-access areas.

Alaska has the highest relative share of land area that is classified as a food desert due to much of the state being unpopulated or lowly populated. Many western states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Washington are among the states with the highest share of area in a food desert.

Is Santa Ana CA wealthy? ›

The per capita income in Santa Ana in 2018 was $27,328, which is lower middle income relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $109,312 for a family of four. However, Santa Ana contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Santa Ana is an extremely ethnically-diverse city.

metro area, which is ranked 5 out of 273 cities across the US in terms of cost of living. According to C2ER (the Council for Community and Economic Research), the cost of living in Santa Ana is estimated to be 150.3% of the national average making it one of the most expensive cities in the US.

Food deserts are areas without grocery stores or other places to buy fresh, healthy foods. Communities that are predominantly Black are more likely to be food deserts.

In fact, in 2016, close to 90% of the food and beverage products consumed in America were produced in the U.S. According to the USDA, in 2021 the top five producing states were California, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas and Minnesota and the leading farm products in the U.S. were cattle, corn, soybeans, milk and other dairy ...

Exports to China were the largest share at $33.7 billion, followed by Mexico at $28.2 billion and Canada at $27.9 billion. The European Union trailed behind these numbers at $12.3 billion, slightly overtaking Japan at $12.2 billion.

Rural food deserts occur in areas where grocery stores with affordable healthy foods are more than five miles away. The term food desert also includes areas where the goods are priced too high for people to purchase within their budget.

So when a supermarket opens in a food desert, people don't suddenly go from shopping at an unhealthy convenience store to shopping at the new healthy supermarket. What happens is, people go from shopping at a far-away supermarket to a new supermarket nearby that offers the same types of groceries.

Food deserts are areas where people have limited access to a variety of healthful foods. This may be due to having a limited income or living far away from sources of healthful and affordable food.

Grocery store shortages can result from various problems, but they're often related to a change in growing conditions. We've also seen supply chain disruptions occur because of port backups and shortages of other ingredients, as well as manufacturers adjusting their factory production to focus on more popular products.