The Influence of Foodstore Access on Grocery Shopping and Food Spending, EIB-180, U.S
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United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research The Influence of Foodstore Access on Service Grocery Shopping and Food Spending Economic Information Bulletin Michele Ver Ploeg Number 180 Elizabeth Larimore October 2017 Parke Wilde United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service www.ers.usda.gov Recommended citation format for this publication: Ver Ploeg, Michele, Elizabeth Larimore, and Parke Wilde. The Influence of Foodstore Access on Grocery Shopping and Food Spending, EIB-180, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, October 2017. Cover photos: Getty Images. Use of commercial and trade names does not imply approval or constitute endorsement by USDA. To ensure the quality of its research reports and satisfy governmentwide standards, ERS requires that all research reports with substantively new material be reviewed by qualified technical research peers. 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Submit your completed form or letter to USDA by: (1) mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410; (2) fax: (202) 690-7442; or (3) email: [email protected]. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research The Influence of Foodstore Access on Service Grocery Shopping and Food Spending Economic Information Bulletin Michele Ver Ploeg, Elizabeth Larimore, and Parke Wilde Number 180 October 2017 Abstract Low access to food retailers selling healthy and affordable foods may lead to reliance on food retail venues that carry a limited range of foods. Reliance on smaller retail stores and restaurants may result in a poor diet and diet-related health problems. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey contains abundant data for examining how access to food retailers influences where households get their food, including stores and restaurants, and how much they spend at each place. This research looks at households that do not use their own vehicle to travel to a store and live more than 0.5 mile from the nearest SNAP-authorized supermarket or superstore, likely barriers to accessing food. Using a national sample and a low- income subsample that includes participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the authors find evidence that access-burdened households have some distinct shopping patterns. They are less likely to visit a large store (supermarket, super- center, or warehouse store) than households with a vehicle or close access (77 percent compared with 87 percent). While those with burdened access who do visit these venues do so less frequently, both groups average over two shopping events at these stores (2.4 events for access-burdened households compared with 2.8 for those with sufficient access). The differences in shopping frequency do not translate to less spending at these large stores as both access-burdened and sufficient-access households spend about 58 percent of their food budget there. Access-burdened households spend a greater share of their budget at food-at-home sources (73 percent) and a smaller percentage of their food at restaurants of all types (27 percent) than households with better access (63 and 37 percent, respectively). Overall spending patterns are similar for both SNAP- participating and low-income nonparticipating households that are access-burdened compared with those who have sufficient access. Keywords: foodstore access, food expenditures, FoodAPS, food away from home, restaurants, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), low-income households Acknowledgments The authors thank Kristen Cooksey Stowers, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, University of Connecticut; Sara Bleich, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Rosemarie Downer, USDA, Food and Nutrition Service; and Annemarie Kuhns, USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) for their reviews. They also thank David Smallwood of ERS for his review of early drafts and ERS editor Courtney Knauth and Cynthia A. Ray. Contents Summary . iii Introduction . 1 FoodAPS and the Food Environment . 4 Defining Access-Burdened and Sufficient- Access Households . 6 FoodAPS Food Access Measures and Sample Characteristics . .. 8 Comparisons of Household Characteristics ..........................................8 Comparison by Proximity to Food Venues ..........................................8 Shopping Events at Different Types of Food Sources . 11 Number of Events by Place Type . 14 Expenditures at FAH Retailers and Restaurants and Other Eating Places . 16 Do More Traditional Measures of Access Show Differences in Food Venue Choices and Food Spending? . 18 Summary and Conclusions . 22 References . 24 Appendix . 26 ii The Influence of Food Store Access on Grocery Shopping and Food Spending, EIB-180 USDA, Economic Research Service Summary United States Department of Agriculture A report summary from the Economic Research Service October 2017 United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research The Influence of Foodstore Access on Service Grocery Shopping and Food Spending Economic The Influence of Foodstore Access on Information Bulletin Michele Ver Ploeg Number 180 Elizabeth Larimore October 2017 Parke Wilde Grocery Shopping and Food Spending Michele Ver Ploeg, Elizabeth Larimore, and Parke Wilde What Is the Issue? Researchers have hypothesized that poor access to food retailers that sell a wide range of healthy and affordable foods results in poorer diet and diet-related health problems. Lack of access to stores such as supermarkets may mean that households rely more heavily on nearby retailers, such as convenience stores or fast-food restaurants, which do not typically offer a wide variety of healthful foods. Existing studies often use measures of neighborhood-level access to a healthy food retailer (or “presumed access”), assuming that households are limited to retailers in their neighborhoods. USDA’s National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) contains abun- dant information on the food retail environment of neighborhoods where sampled households live and on household resources, such as vehicle ownership and income, that facilitate access to food retailers. These data enable a new analysis of how the local food environment and house- hold resources are related to where households acquire food and how much of their food budget is spent at various types of retailers. What Did the Study Find? Six percent of U.S. households are access-burdened: they do not use their own vehicle to travel to the store for groceries and live more than 0.5 mile from the nearest SNAP-authorized super- market or superstore (SM/SS), which we use to proxy the nearest source of healthy and afford- able food. Further analysis showed that: • Seventy-seven percent of access-burdened households reported a shopping event at a supermarket, superstore, large grocery store, or warehouse store during the survey week compared to 87 percent for households with sufficient access. Of those who visited these large stores during the survey week, sufficient-access households had 2.8 shopping events at such a store, while access-burdened households averaged 2.4 shopping events. • Although they average fewer trips, access-burdened households spend almost the same percentage of their weekly food expenditures at large stores as households with sufficient ERS is a primary source of economic research and access—57 percent of total spending for access-burdened households and 58 percent for analysis from the U.S. sufficient-access households. Department of Agriculture, providing timely