FSF’s Report Identifies Innovative Solutions to Help Ensure Grocery Retail Access to Affordable, Nutritious Food in Low-Income Communities across the United States.
Washington, D.C. Dec 13, 2024 — Food Systems for the Future (FSF) has just released “Grocery Retail for All: Affordable, Nutritious Food in Every Neighborhood”, a new report aimed at identifying creative solutions to the persistent challenges faced by grocery operators in low-income communities across the United States. The report highlights opportunities for innovation, collaboration, policy change, and funding in the grocery sector, all focused on increasing grocery retail success and ensuring the affordability, availability, and accessibility of nutritious food in every community.
To uncover effective strategies, FSF conducted in-depth interviews with 45 grocers operating across urban and rural settings in the U.S. and 22 industry experts and complemented the findings with peer-reviewed and gray literature. The data were further enriched by input from grocery retail expert advisors.
The report was developed in collaboration with several key partners, including The Food Trust, Reinvestment Fund, Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and The Global Food Institute at George Washington University.
Key Findings and Recommendations
The report highlights critical insights into the successes of grocery retail across urban and rural settings. It underscores the importance of customer-centric strategies, innovative operational tactics, and supportive policies in ensuring affordable, nutritious food access. Key findings include:
In today’s competitive grocery retail landscape, it is not enough to compete solely on price. Stores must deeply understand their competition and define clear, unique reasons for serving their specific customer base. By finding a niche and developing a differentiated, defendable strategy, grocers can build strong customer loyalty and sustain their success, even in challenging markets.
Despite differences in size, model, and context, successful grocers are implementing 12 common tactics across two objectives: 1) caring for customers and 2) optimizing operations, to remain viable and continue to provide affordable, healthy food to their communities.
Federal, state, and local policies are enabling increased access to nutritious food through grocery retail, but opportunities to enhance and expand impact remain.
There is recognition that additional issues remain unresolved, such as varying definitions of success for grocery retail stores and insufficient strategies for selling and promoting healthy foods, this calls for continued innovation, collaboration, and policy enhancement to strengthen food access nationwide.
Policymakers, researchers, and funders can play a vital role in addressing these issues and supporting the success of grocery champions.
"Ensuring affordable, nutritious food for all requires more than awareness; it demands action, partnership, finance, and a commitment to serve. This report marks an important step forward in advancing grocery retail solutions for America’s underserved rural and urban communities." - Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, CEO and Managing Director, Food Systems for the Future
Learn More
For a comprehensive look at the findings and to discover strategies that have led to grocery retail success in low-income urban and rural communities, read the full report [here].
The report will provide a foundation for the discussions presented at the Grocery Retail for All Summit, an event hosted by The Global Food Institute at George Washington University, FSF, and José Andrés, taking place on Friday, December 13, 2024, at the George Washington University. This summit will serve as a platform for bringing together community and independent operators, thought leaders from community organizations, retail, philanthropy, and government to initiate discussions to develop innovative solutions for expanding access to affordable, nutritious food.
“The Grocery Retail for All Summit is an important convening of passionate partners who are trying to address the grocery retail food system across the country to ensure everyone has access to affordable, healthy foods. The Grocery Retail for All report will be an important document for all to read that contains background, history, case studies, best practices, and recommendations for the future.” - Nyssa Entrenkin, Associate Director, The Food Trust.
"There are innovative leaders across the country successfully working to expand grocery retail access in their communities. We want to share and replicate those successes as well as shape policy that can help to ensure nutritious food is available, affordable, and accessible in every neighborhood in the United States. The best way to do that is to ensure the key stakeholders- from retailers to policymakers to community leaders- have a seat at the table for these critical conversations. Today's meeting is an example of how we can work together to fix our food environment." - Stacy Dean, Carbonell Family Executive Director, The Global Food Institute
About Food Systems for the Future (FSF)
FSF is a U.S. 501 (c)(3) organization led by Founder and CEO, Ambassador Ertharin Cousin. Through deep sector expertise, a network of advisors, and institutional partnerships, FSF addresses malnutrition with an economically sustainable climate lens. FSF is dedicated to delivering food as health; creating an ecosystem that ensures equitable access to affordable, nutritious food, particularly in historically underserved communities. FSF maintains one mission, with two operating teams - United States and Africa. Both teams operationalize the shared theory of change: that by creating the necessary ecosystem, while identifying and partnering with too often overlooked and underfunded talented teams across the food system, they can deliver nutrition impact through economically sustainable operations.
For more information about this report, please contact:
Erika Contreras
Communications Associate
Food Systems for the Future