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Has anyone attempted a mobile grocery store that drives to food deserts on a fixed schedule? It could say be a container with a single aisle, stocked with the

by psadri 7y ago

Has anyone attempted a mobile grocery store that drives to food deserts on a fixed schedule? It could say be a container with a single aisle, stocked with the basics and a checkout at one end.

ctab 7y ago
These exist in Los Angeles, primarily serving Latino neighborhoods: https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-produce-trucks-20140219-m-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-produce-trucks-201402...
simonsarris 7y ago
I don't think so, because "Food deserts" are what happens when the demand for ideologically congenial explanations for socially inconvenient facts greatly exceeds the supply. There is an assumed causal directionality which turns out to not be supported. Most places are food deserts not because market forces don't work there, but because they do: People in those areas do not want to buy fresh vegetables and raw ingredients for cooking. They prefer to buy packaged/processed foods, regardless of cost or health comparisons they are making, or not making. This makes traditional grocery stores less worth it, so they leave if they can't make do. There's a lot of literature on food deserts (as typically stated) being more or less a meme since 2015, here's one example with a couple studies to back it: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-easy-access-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-ea... > Another study, published this week as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked across the country and found that no more than a tenth of the variation in the food people bought could be explained by the availability of a nearby grocery store. The education level of the shoppers, for example, was far more predictive. And so on. So no I don't think your idea would work particularly well past the novelty stage :(
- psadri 7y ago
  This is disheartening. I can see how once people switch to junk food, for lack of availability or other reason, it becomes hard to go back. Junk foods are designed to be addictive (salty, fatty, convenient,...)

by psadri 7y ago

Has anyone attempted a mobile grocery store that drives to food deserts on a fixed schedule? It could say be a container with a single aisle, stocked with the basics and a checkout at one end.

ctab 7y ago

These exist in Los Angeles, primarily serving Latino neighborhoods: https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-produce-trucks-20140219-m-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-c1-produce-trucks-201402...

simonsarris 7y ago

I don't think so, because "Food deserts" are what happens when the demand for ideologically congenial explanations for socially inconvenient facts greatly exceeds the supply. There is an assumed causal directionality which turns out to not be supported. Most places are food deserts not because market forces don't work there, but because they do: People in those areas do not want to buy fresh vegetables and raw ingredients for cooking. They prefer to buy packaged/processed foods, regardless of cost or health comparisons they are making, or not making. This makes traditional grocery stores less worth it, so they leave if they can't make do. There's a lot of literature on food deserts (as typically stated) being more or less a meme since 2015, here's one example with a couple studies to back it: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-easy-access-to-healthy-food-doesnt-mean-theyll-buy-it.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/upshot/giving-the-poor-ea... > Another study, published this week as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked across the country and found that no more than a tenth of the variation in the food people bought could be explained by the availability of a nearby grocery store. The education level of the shoppers, for example, was far more predictive. And so on. So no I don't think your idea would work particularly well past the novelty stage :(

psadri 7y ago
This is disheartening. I can see how once people switch to junk food, for lack of availability or other reason, it becomes hard to go back. Junk foods are designed to be addictive (salty, fatty, convenient,...)