Lack of Supermarkets: Supermarket Redlining

Having access to nutritional food should be a human right; however, there are many marginalized communities that do not have access to fresh foods.

This access is purposefully inaccessible for certain communities. Here are some examples that shed light on why these inequities exist. We implore you to use this information as a starting point to research and understand how food insecurity may be affecting your community.

It is evident that certain supermarkets are kept out of inner city neighborhoods. A term that can help define this action is supermarket redlining.

Supermarket redlining began in the 1960’s and is described as, an aversion of large supermarkets to place their stores in inner-city or low-income neighborhoods. According to a Public Health article by the University of California Irvine; “These shops may cite reasons such as low profit margins, higher crime rates, and may unconsciously be due to the stigmatization of minority communities.”

Supermarkets are vital to a community as they are often able to provide lower prices due to their ability to buy in bulk and their established relationships with distributors. Since redlining has been implemented people that are in lower-income neighborhoods have less access to fresh food and often pay higher prices for fresh food.

Lack of access to fresh foods causes a chain reaction that affects how inner-city households eat, how local school children eat, and what everyday adults are eating to thrive and be productive.

As redlining is not currently illegal and supermarkets can not be forced to support the community, it is worthwhile looking into supporting your smaller grocery stores. This action can also help with the circulation of the dollar in your neighborhood. We implore you to look at how supermarket redlining impacts you and your community.