Interesting reports on urban food-supermarket issues (Philadelphia)

From David Adler of Philadelphia's The Food Trust

Two reports released today by The Food Trust shed new light on the issues of access to fresh food and supermarkets.

Philadelphia’s New Markets: Ripe Opportunities for Retailers finds both substantial unmet food retail demand and tremendous economic opportunity for food retail development throughout Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. The report demonstrates that some neighborhoods in the city have as much as $205 million in unmet food retail demand, despite each inner-city community possessing at least $50 million dollars of retail buying power per square mile.

Food Geography: How Food Access Affects Diet and Health, a joint collaboration between The Food Trust and the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation, finds a strong connection between poor health, lack of access to healthy food, and consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Together, these two reports quantify what many people have known for years: many neighborhoods in Philadelphia that have the economic base to support a supermarket are currently without one, and furthermore this lack of access has profound effects on public health. These reports are very encouraging for those of us working to promote access to healthy foods with the goal of improving health.
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According to the Food Trust website:

The Food Trust, the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition (GPUAC), and The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) have formed a public-private partnership to support the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative...To date, the FFFI has committed resources to 11 supermarket projects and has committed over $7.3 million in grants and loans to leverage this investment. These 11 projects will result in the creation of 1,432 new jobs and represent approximately 386,650 square feet of new retail. In addition, there are currently over 20 projects in the financing pipeline, ranging from 900 square foot mom and pop shops to 65,000 sq. ft. full service supermarkets.

Very Interesting.

Index Keywords: supermarkets; urban-revitalization