Community Food Security - read the Hunger Commission's food access study and download free food access study materials including curriculum for nutrition education workshops.

Local stores

Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento are examples of how low-income communities have been affected by this national supermarket consolidation trend. A series of large chain stores have left the area in the past twenty years includingSafeway, Raley's, and Lucky's. Presently, there is only one large competitively priced retail supermarket--Sav-Max--in the95838 zip code. It is, unfortunately, located on the opposite side of a major freeway, away from the greatest number of people living in North Sacramento and Del Paso Heights. This creates a natural barrier to those who do not have access to a vehicle, asthere is no bike path on the overpass and heavy traffic makeswalking with children an unattractive option. There are also four medium sized stores within the two neighborhoods. Unfortunately, many residents' perceptions of these stores are oftenthat they are dirty on the outside (and sometimes the inside), offeringlittle fresh produce or affordable meat and do not offer competitive shopping values. Many of these markets utilize the smaller, old chain store buildings. These neighborhood stores are able to providea convenient place to shop for many residents without transportation.A close location is doubly important since people without cars arerestricted to what they can carry, increasing the frequency of shopping trips.

According to Weinberg, lower food prices, better product variety and selection, and information on using nutritious foods economically are three important elements for poor households. He explained further that smaller stores normally do not have a large enough space or the buying power from a large enough sales volume to supply a variety of discount or store brand items. Many residents without their own cars are forced to rely on the local stores for day-to-day items, which can be far more expensive than a major retail chain. One community input group said that they sometimes walk to the local stores to purchase one or two items to ‘get by', but tried to avoid it. We conducted a grocery store price comparison during the month of June 2000 looking at the different neighborhood stores in Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento, and two major chain stores outside of the community, Albertson's and Safeway, where many participants named as stores frequented (Appendix 2). The cheapest store for the list of items was Sav-Max. But, interestingly some of the neighborhood stores were consistently able to have competitive prices offering generic brand items, a positive step toward food security. (Results did not include sale items)

Considering this competitive pricing, the main difference between the smaller independent stores and larger chain stores was that larger chains could offer more selection and had greater availability of larger sizes of items at lower prices. A 1993 North Sacramento trade area analysis further supported this conclusion when talking about local stores in Del Paso Heights and North Sacramento saying, “These facilities are unable to provide all of the goods and services that the modern retail/grocery supermarket shopper has come to anticipate would be available in their supermarket.” The price comparison demonstrated that the totals for the chain stores were actually higher. But it did not reveal that they offered a much greater selection of larger sizes of food items and did not reflect two for one deals commonly associated with major chains. Many larger size foods were cheaper by the unit, but our price comparison did not take into account these larger, cheaper items. Buying in large quantities is important for many residents since families are a significant percentage of the population. One participant that shopped at Sav-Max said, "You can get a lot of bulk food for a cheap amount." Participants also said that additional savings offered at chain stores through coupon books and sales allowed for even more discounts. "Albertson's accepts competitors' coupons. Everybody else just accepts their own," one resident said. The "two for one" deals at Safeway were one of the ways mentioned by people to save in stores outside of the community.

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