The issue of grocery deserts—sections of the country that lack dependable sources of fresh and healthy food—continues to become acute in many parts of America. To visualize the problem and rally activists and policymakers to seek solutions, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance recently published an interactive map showing grocery deserts by community and by congressional district. Spotlight recently spoke with Katy Milani, the associate director for Policy and Advocacy for ILSR’s Independent Business Program, about the map and its potential uses. The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Katy, before we dive into the map, why don’t you give some background on this growing problem of grocery deserts.
We published this map to visualize this issue of grocery deserts, which is something people talk a lot about; they're noticing that they just have the Dollar Store in their community. They don't have access to fresh foods at a close vicinity. And visualizing this is so powerful for all of our audiences, but especially for policymakers.
And one of the things that we've been unearthing is that this is not some natural phenomenon that's impacting rural communities because there aren't that many people and it doesn't economically make sense for the independent grocer to remain. We actually think there's something deeper happening from a policy standpoint, and that's just that the independent cannot compete. And we often see that our antitrust policies have largely not been enforced for the last five decades. The more that we dug into it, we found that it was the abandonment of enforcing one key antitrust law, which is the Robinson Patman Act, which actually came out of really making sure independent grocers could continue to compete with the larger corporations.
The act basically mandates that the independents and big chains should receive equal treatment from those selling the products that they have on their shelves; they should pay the same prices. That was a law that was put on the books a long time ago and has not been enforced in the last 50 years. And when we started abandoning the enforcement of that law was right when the decline of independent grocers and this issue of grocery deserts became a really prevalent problem.
And so, that’s what this map does, which is making the case that we really need to be enforcing our antitrust laws and ensuring that we have the different types of retailers within our economy to be able to flourish. Right now, it's only the Walmarts of the world.
I don't want to go too far down the antitrust rabbit hole, but I assume if I'm an independent grocer, I do have some legal capacity to litigate that. Is it just a matter of cost that that's not happening?
We talk to a lot of independent grocers—they’re a primary source for us—and we’ve heard from them that they have receipts that show a discrepancy in prices being charged. Independent grocers are part of trade associations, and there's one in particular that we work with closely at ILSR, which is the National Grocers Association. And so yes, they can and do take action, but we really need the government to be enforcing these laws. There are things states can do as well.
And just one final question on that and then onto the map. Is there anything that is happening at the state level where the state attorney generals are doing a better job of enforcing these laws?
There is a lot happening at the state level. There are state attorneys general who are paying attention. When the Federal Trade Commission, who enforces antitrust laws, filed lawsuits against PepsiCo and Walmart, a number of state attorneys generals signed on to that lawsuit. They are paying attention to this, and states are working with other states to combine resources. The other thing that's happening is that there are a few states—Rhode Island, New York and Minnesota are some of them—passing laws to mirror what's in the federal antitrust statute. There is real momentum within not just AGs paying attention and wanting to take action but state legislators passing laws to give their AGs more authority to enforce the law.
Ok, on to the map. How long has it been up and if I visit it, what can I see?
We published this map in January and essentially what it shows visually is you can find your congressional district and zoom into your community to see where there are grocery deserts within your district.
And how do you define a grocery desert?
We use the federal USDA definition of a grocery desert. They actually have their own maps and data sets, which we used. And then we, as ILSR, looked at that data and categorized full-scale grocery stores—not the Dollar Stores or Dollar Generals or gas stations. Convenience stores and dollar chains are taken out of this data because we really wanted to visualize full scale grocery stores that have fresh packaged foods. We then went in and analyzed which ones would be categorized as a mega chain, large chain, small and independent. So, you can take a look and see what kinds of grocery stores are in your community in addition to where there's the overlay of grocery deserts.
The audience that we are really hoping to engage are policymakers and advocates that are trying to get their member of Congress to care about not just the antitrust piece, but also the food access piece. A lot of food justice advocates have found this tool quite useful because they can really show their elected officials to what extent this is an issue in their community.
What surprised you when you looked at the map? Were there trends or were there areas that were unexpected?
One of the arguments you hear a lot is that it’s more rural communities where you don’t have robust, thriving economies and where you end up with a lot of grocery deserts. But it’s also a problem in big cities and urban areas. It was also interesting to look at areas like where I live, in New York City, where there aren’t grocery deserts, and try to see what the policy choices were that led to that. In the Bronx, for example, we actually have a quite thriving independent grocery sector. There aren’t a lot of Walmarts—so why is that? That’s one question that came to me. On the other hand, there are states—Texas is an example—where it’s really stark to see the extent of communities that do not have grocery stores.
What sort of follow-up are you planning?
We steward a coalition of independent business associations, groups that represent independent businesses or main street businesses at the local level. And what we're really interested in is how do we build these diverse coalitions that bridge different priorities. So, for example, there's the food justice advocates that often work on agriculture issues as well. How do we construct a coalition where they are working together, with the independent retailers working in a coalition as well? How do we bridge those gaps? They may have different messaging and may not be in lockstep on a campaign, but at the same time they can be working toward the same goal. That’s something we’re thinking about a lot lately and how to use the map strategically to identify policymakers on both sides of the aisle that we should be engaging. What we’re doing is building the base of groups working on these issues.
And on the antitrust front, is there a potential legislative fix you are looking for?
On the federal side? Yes and no. It’s always been our position that we could clarify and strengthen our antitrust laws, especially if we’re talking about the Robinson Patman Act. But we also believe that the enforcers have enough authority and enough of a runway to be enforcing the law as they were 50 years ago.
Anything else you would like to add?
This is a living, breathing map and all data is imperfect. So, as folks are looking at it, if you see something that is missing or has changed, there is a way to reach out to us because we will be updating to reflect that kind of input. We want to hear from folks.