Food Deserts Update

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) approved the final list of New Jersey’s 50 designated Food Desert Communities during its Board meeting on Feb. 9. Over the next several years, up to $240 million in funding through the Food Desert Relief Act will be available to strengthen food security and combat food deserts in these communities.

NJEDA Board Approves NJ Food Desert Communities Designations List - NJEDA

SJM members and supporters concerned about food insecurity stepped up to attend and report back on NJEDA listening workshops held on January 12 & 13 about the designations of 50 “Food Deserts” in NJ.

Presenters explained the rationale and methodology used to identify the 50 locales. Q&A sessions followed the presentations. Our most important takeaways for now, at the very beginning of planning and implementation:

 1.       We were offered no concrete suggestions for citizen participation at this stage, although the question was asked.

2.       There will be future listening sessions on more facets of planning that we will be made aware of.

You can find recordings of the two listening sessions at https://youtu.be/kyRd9uWj3VU for Jan. 12, and https://youtu.be/vqAQKaVIjpI for Jan. 13.

SJM member Ann Saltzman reports on the session she attended:

On January 13, 2022, I attended a Food Desert Community Designation Listening Session, sponsored by the New Jersey Economic Development Agency.  The purpose of the session was to describe and discuss the fifty food deserts which have been so designated as a result of the Food Desert Relief Act, a component of the Economic Recovery Act of 2020, signed into law by Governor Phil Murphy on January 7, 2022.

New Jersey faces a crisis of food insecurity which has been exacerbated by the covid pandemic.  The latest data indicate that approximately 350,00 households did not have enough to eat in the past week.  Even prior to covid, many New Jersey residents had limited access to supermarkets and grocery stores.

 The goals of the Food Desert Relief Act are to (1) develop and sustain operations of supermarkets and grocery stores; (2) to strengthen existing community assets like bodegas and community gardens; (3) to help food retailers successfully shift from the current use of paper vouchers to EBT (debit cards) for programs like SNAP and WIC; and (4) to foster innovative solutions to alleviate food insecurity.

To identify the food deserts in New Jersey, five variables were identified: (1) food retail environment (e.g., access to and size of food retailers where healthy food can be purchased;

 (2) demographics of the community (e.g., percentage of single mothers; percentage of non-high school graduates; percentage of African-American and/or Hispanic people); (3) economic factors (e.g., poverty rate, percentage of households on public assistance; percentage unemployed); (4) health factors (e.g., obesity level, percentage of people whose health has been rated as fair or poor;}; (5) community factors (e.g., access to transportation; housing costs; percentage of non-seasonal workers).

 Factor analysis of these variables allowed fifty food deserts to be identified.  Some are fully in a municipality although a municipality may have more than one desert (e.g., Newark has four).  Food deserts may also cross municipal boundaries but are then defined by specific street boundaries; for example, there is a food desert in the Maplewood-Orange area.  To ensure geographic diversity, food deserts were identified in all twenty-one counties on New Jersey.  In total, these deserts include 1,321,484 residents with populations ranges of 1,135 to 49,831.  The average populations of a food desert is 26,430.

 Union County has four food deserts.  Two are in Elizabeth and received rankings of 13 and 21, in terms of severity of food insecurity.  One food desert straddles the Linden-Roselle area and is ranked #40; the final food desert is in Plainfield, ranked #44.

 To learn more and to see the slides presented at the listening session, please visit: 

njeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Food-Desert-Communities-Listening-Session-Slides-January-2022.pdf.

 Submitted by Ann Saltzman

 SJM Member Jeffrey Sharlein adds:

Misc. general notes

●      90 attendees on 1/12/22 call (1st of 2); based on who spoke, it was a mix of organizational representatives, grassroots leaders, and other residents

●      After these listening sessions, NJ Economic Development Agency (EDA) will revisit their proposal and then have a 2nd round of listening sessions after next steps

●      Current program will run for 6 years

●      Written feedback can be given at Program Specific Feedback - NJEDA through February 4

Concerns raised, grouped by theme

Community engagement/process & outcome of identifying food deserts

●      Concerns about the process:

○      How do we define transparency? How do organizations define it vs. how the community defines it - communities should be involved from the beginning rather than after all the numbers have been crunched, etc.

○      Demographics, etc., were used to define food deserts, but “no heart” in those measures - they should also go into communities and talk to people, see how they define terms and experience their neighborhoods (“qualitative food deserts”)

●      What counts as a supermarket for the designation (e.g., ShopRite vs. PriceRite - same company but differences in quality, price, presence of expired food on the shelves); also concerns about how supermarkets vs. smaller markets were considered

●      Concerns about the outcome

○      Plainfield map doesn’t look right to one participant - parts of the city that are food deserts aren’t designated as such, and vice versa

○      A similar concern was voiced about Paterson, with specific reference to the supermarket (ShopRite vs. PriceRite) issue

●      One person noted that participation on the call was low from designated food desert communities and asked how to reach that population (one person suggested social media). At the same time, some people who spoke were from the designated communities

Demand side (expanding grocery stores, etc., speaks to the supply side)

●      There was some debate among speakers as to whether demand needs to be cultivated or if it’s already there (“If you build it they will come”)

●      Some comments on addressing the demand issue:

○      More health education is needed - “we’ve never been taught how to feed our kids”; school nurses don’t have the resources to support parents in this; etc.

○      Public health approach: can we think about switching to nutritious food as analogous to quitting smoking?

○      Nutrition education needs to be a long-term endeavor, in part because if you don’t grow up with nutritious food you don’t have a taste for it

●      There needs to be education for corner stores around displaying food

●      One person raised commissary kitchens in food desert communities: volunteers use the raw ingredients to cook for people who buy the nutritious food but may not know what to do with it (pilot in Bergen is happening)

Sustainability/economic concerns

●      How do you improve economic conditions in communities to continue addressing food desert issues once the program’s funding ends? (I.e., “sustainable solutions vs. policy fads)

●      How to make sure that residents of food deserts have opportunities to take part in economic opportunities?

●      Prepared foods are a major money-maker for grocery stores, but they know that people in the communities may not be able to afford it, which is a disincentive for the stores

Benefits (SNAP & WIC)

●      Improving usability with SNAP & WIC is great, but access to these benefits also needs to be addressed; aspects of the application process hinder people from applying

●      Info on farmers markets where SNAP is accepted: NJ Food Democracy Collaborative (google.com)

Ecommerce concerns

●      Delivery charges as an issue for using ecommerce with SNAP

●      Some delivery companies won’t deliver to some neighborhoods

Submitted by Jeffrey Sharlein