The Rural Poor's Access to Supermarkets and Large Grocery Stores

Family Economics and Nutrition Review, Winter, 1999

A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) found that retail food prices varied with the type of store and its location. Compared with metro areas, rural areas support fewer supermarkets and a larger percentage of smaller grocery stores. Also, rural households face supermarket prices about 4 percent higher than those available to suburban households. Nationwide, supermarket prices average 10 percent lower than prices in other grocery stores, such as "mom and pop" stores or convenience stores. Supermarkets can take advantage of economies of scale (as sales increase, costs per unit decline) by having smaller markups -- and, thus, lower prices. The larger physical size of supermarkets also allows for greater product variety and more economical brands (store-label and generic) and package sizes.

Although poor households spent 76.7 percent of food stamps in supermarkets nationwide, rural supermarkets accounted for just 58.9 percent of all rural food stamp redemptions. In low-income rural areas, supermarkets accounted for only 52.8 percent of total redemptions. Because of price differences between supermarkets in rural and suburban areas, and the lower use of supermarkets in poor rural areas, poor rural households face food prices that are 2.5 percent higher, on average, than other rural households face and that are 3.1 percent higher than those suburban households face.

ERS investigated access to food stores in 36 rural, high-poverty counties bordering the Mississippi River. Prior studies have focused on households in urban metro areas because they account for three-quarters of the total U.S. population. The selection of this particular area -- the Lower Mississippi Delta region -- supports the work of the Nutrition Intervention Research Initiative (NIRI), a consortium of seven partners, including USDA and six higher education and research institutions located in the region. The aim of NIRI is to improve the health and well-being of people in the Lower Delta region, and one of its objectives is to improve access to affordable, quality food by low-income households.

The 36-county area where the study was conducted contained 222 large food retail outlets with gross sales in 1993 of $909 million; food stamp redemption in these stores totaled $113 million. Supermarkets with annual sales of $6 million or more accounted for 54.3 percent of gross sales but only 42.4 percent of food stamp redemptions (figure).

[Figure ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The availability of large food retailers can be gauged by the average number of square miles per store for a given area. For example, in the 36 counties, there was one supermarket per 190.5 square miles; for all rural counties in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, there was one supermarket per 153.5 square miles. When large grocery stores are included, the average square miles per large retailer in all rural counties improved to 101.6.

Household access to larger grocery stores was determined, and the level of accessible annual food dollars in the area where the study was conducted was separated into ZIP Code quartiles. ZIP Codes in the quartile with the highest food sales accounted for 57.2 percent of the population in the area where the study was

conducted. The level of household food expenditures available to a retail food location was also separated into ZIP Code quartiles. The highest quartile accounted for 51.4 percent of the population in the area included in the study. Net accessibility ratios were calculated by dividing accessible food sales by accessible food expenditures and then tabulated (table 1). Of the 200 ZIP Codes that made up the core study area, 124 had accessibility ratios less than 1.0 -- indicating that food expenditures were not fully satisfied by accessible large retailers.

Table 1. Net accessibility of all households to larger food retailers: Lower Delta core counties(1) The net accessibility ratio exceeded 1.0 in 38 percent of ZIP Codes, representing 72.4 percent of the total population in the Lower Delta region.

  Net accessibility ratio                       ZIP Code
    (R)                         ZIP Codes      households

                                           Number

Less than 0.5                         0               0
0.5 - 0.749                          22           9,567
0.75 - 1.0                          102          65,832
More than 1.0                        76         197,389
36-county total                     200         272,788

                                      Percent share(2)

Less than 0.5                         0               0
0.5 - 0.749                        11.0             3.5
0.75 - 1.0                         51.0            24.1
More than 1.0                      38.0            72.4

                                                 ZIP Code
  Net accessibility ratio        ZIP Code       households
    (R)                        population      without car

                                          Number

Less than 0.5                        0                  0
0.5 - 0.749                     28,319              1,570
0.75 - 1.0                     198,526             11,950
More than 1.0                  584,508             37,892
36-county total                811,353             51,412

                                      Percent share(2)

Less than 0.5                        0                  0
0.5 - 0.749                        3.5               16.4
0.75 - 1.0                        24.5               18.1
More than 1.0                     72.0               19.2