Food Deserts in Low-Income Communities

Authored by Jizelle Dumayas

Art by: Ava Shi

It is a typical Sunday morning, and you decide to find a grocery store on your way back from work. This is unfamiliar territory to you, but you are sure that you will encounter a market within the next 3-5 minutes. However, to your surprise, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and now 20 minutes go by, and still you find yourself circling the same side of town looking for any place that would sell fresh, healthy produce. You manage to spot a liquor store, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s on nearly every corner. Despite seeing many restaurants from leading fast food chains, you are hit with the disappointing realization that the nearest grocery store is 5 miles away. 

In this community, liquor stores and fast food restaurants are built on every corner, but that’s not bad luck; that’s by design. Communities like these consist of low to low-medium income, predominantly black individuals [1]. The scenario described above is a reality that around 18.8 million Americans living in underprivileged and under-resourced communities constantly face [2]. The scarcity of markets with fresh, nutritious foods and produce that are readily available in a community is known as a food desert [3]. 

Food deserts have been a problem in the United States for generations, dating back to redlining and institutionalized racism intended to keep black and low-income communities impoverished and struggling [3]. Food deserts are an indignity to human life. They have been directly linked to high rates of obesity amongst adolescents in the U.S., increased risk for heart disease, higher occurrence of type II diabetes, and even shorter life expectancy [4].

The abundance of fast food restaurants that sell cheap, and quickly made meals in low-income communities, and the prevalence of stores like Albertsons, Vons, Whole Foods, Sprouts, etc., in affluent communities, is all part of a greedy marketing strategy. It intentionally targets areas predicted to have demographically ‘ideal’ customers who are the most frequent buyers [3]. 

According to Morland et al., “...the wealthier neighborhoods contain fewer smaller grocery stores, convenience stores (without gas stations), and specialty foods stores compared to the lowest-wealth neighborhoods” [1]. As supermarkets with fresh and nutritious foods become sparse in low-wealth neighborhoods, it is more likely that these individuals have limited means of transportation and cannot conveniently commute to distant parts of town. This continues to perpetuate the cycle of food insecurity. This is part of the reason why, in recent years, the U.S. has seen the worst levels of hunger in decades [5].

Who set this system up? The major culprits are America’s leading food monopolies seeking the highest profit with little to no regard for who they impact along the way. One of the complications of corporate greed includes the emergence of corporate consolidation. Corporate consolidation, the merging of multiple companies to create a single entity, has had a major influence on food accessibility [6]. In the past, nearly all neighborhoods had accessible grocery stores. But, after the abolishment of the Robinson-Patman Act in the 1980s, corporate consolidation made a dominant return. Essentially, there was no reinforcement against price discrimination, in which a seller, in this case, a food supplier, charges different customers different prices for identical products [7]. This price discrimination has done nothing but put millions of Americans at a socioeconomic and health-related disadvantage [8].

References

1. Morland, K., Wing, S., Diez Roux, A., & Poole, C. (2002). Neighborhood characteristics associated with the location of Food Stores and Food Service Places. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 22(1), 23–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0749-3797(01)00403-2  

2. Team, E. (2025, June 26). Food Deserts: An Analysis of their Prevalence in the U.S.https://www.escoffier.edu/blog/world-food-drink/food-deserts-an-analysis-of-their-prevalence-in-the-us/ 

3. Cassidy, J. (2024, June 10). Hungry in America: Exploring the Food Desert Crisis. The Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/hungry-in-america-exploring-the-food-desert-crisis/  

4. Massey, J., McCullough, M., & Jemal, Dr. A. (2023, June 28). Living in Food Deserts is Associated with Shorter Life Expectancy in the US, New Research Shows. American Cancer Society. https://pressroom.cancer.org/releases?item=1237  

5. Ney, J. (2022, January 25). Food Deserts and Inequality. Social Policy Data Lab. https://www.socialpolicylab.org/post/grow-your-blog-community   

6. Milani, K., & Parker, C. (2026, January 28). Mapping food deserts and grocery consolidation | Independent Business. ILSR: Institute for Local Self-Reliance. https://ilsr.org/article/independent-business/grocerygaps/ 

7. Chesnes, M., & Nguyen, S. T. (2024, December 12). Price Discrimination: Robinson-Patman Violations. Federal Trade Commission. https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/price-discrimination-robinson-patman-violations   

8. Beaulac, J., Kristjansson, E., & Cummins, S. (2009, July). A systematic review of food deserts, 1966-2007. Preventing Chronic Disease. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2722409/