Why Should Delaware Care?
In a state where one in five children is food insecure, grocery stores – and thus healthy, affordable foods – can be especially scarce in Delaware’s low-income communities. Pockets of food deserts and food “swamps”, or areas that have more corner stores and fast food chains but fewer to no grocery stores, dot the state’s three counties. A lack of access to healthy foods creates unnecessary health issues that weigh on the state’s workforce and health care costs.
On Tuesday, the Delaware Senate unanimously passed legislation to expand healthy food access in vulnerable communities by incentivizing existing grocery stores and other food providers. It now heads to the House for consideration.
Senate Bill 254 would create a three-year statewide pilot program to combat food deserts, or areas that lack access to fresh, healthy foods. The legislation allows the Delaware Division of Small Business to tap into the state’s existing network of food providers, offering them financial assistance to help close the gap between residents and healthy food.
“While people have been talking about our worsening food deserts for over a decade, we have seen very little progress in terms of making healthy foods readily available to the Delaware families living in urban and rural neighborhoods across our state who do not have reasonable access to a grocery store or supermarket,” said the bill’s sponsor, State Sen. Darius Brown (D-Wilmington), in a statement Tuesday.
If signed into law, the legislation would:
Create the Delaware Grocery Initiative to work with independent grocers, food banks, supermarkets and other resources on expanding access to healthy foods;
Convert the First State Food System Program, a federally-funded pandemic-era program that has invested $1.3 million in strengthening Delaware’s food supply chain, into a state-funded program focused on improving healthy food access.
Require the state government to develop a strategy addressing food insecurity in its urban, suburban and rural communities. The Delaware Council on Farm & Food Policy would lead this effort, eliciting input from farmers, retailers, distributors and other food supply experts to recommend investments and necessary reforms.
A substitute version of SB 254 (S), introduced last week, lowered staffing costs by about $300,000. The new staffing price tag – just over $86,000 for the first year – is more likely to be fully covered in the state’s annual operating budget, a Senate spokesperson said. Funding for the Delaware Grocery Initiative would be set by the budget and would sunset after three years unless the General Assembly takes additional action.
In Delaware, a nearly 12% food insecurity rate
In 2022, more than 120,000 Delawareans were food insecure. That could mean they didn’t have enough food to meet basic needs, lacked access to nutrient-dense foods, or didn’t know where their next meal would come from.
Nearly one in five Black or Hispanic residents of Delaware experience food insecurity, according to a Delaware Journal of Public Health study. | PHOTO COURTESY OF FREE FOOD FOR ALL DELAWARE
The state’s food insecurity rate coincides with the 11.4% of Delawareans experiencing poverty, per a five-year study on poverty by the Delaware Journal of Public Health. That rate was higher among Black and Hispanic residents, at about 18% for both populations.
“We know that Delawareans are struggling with food insecurity right now,” said Chad Robinson, vice president of external affairs for the Food Bank of Delaware.
Last year, the Food Bank distributed 17.2 million pounds of food, or more than 20 million meals. Despite the need, Robinson said donations for the organization have not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
“The Food Bank is in a position today where we’re purchasing more food to meet the needs of our community than we have at any point in our history,” Robinson said.
Grants through the Delaware Grocery Initiative could fill some of those gaps.
“Food is one of our most basic survival needs, yet thousands of Delawareans still do not have access to fresh, healthy options in their communities,” said Rep. Nnamdi Chukwuocha, the prime House sponsor of SB 254 (S), in a statement.
He added that the bill is a “significant step” toward ensuring more Delawares can find healthy foods and markets near them.
‘In survival mode’
Delaware residents facing hunger reportedly needed $89.3 million more per year to meet their food needs, according to Feeding America’s 2022 Map the Meal Gap study. People facing hunger said they needed nearly $25 more per week to meet their food needs. Adjusted for inflation, that’s higher than any point in the last 20 years, per the study.
“A lot of people are in survival mode, which makes it hard to care about what they put in their bodies,” said Jamilah Abdullah, a Wilmington resident who runs Free Food For All Delaware. The mutual aid organization serves 150 to 200 free meals per month in the Wilmington area, using farm-fresh, halal ingredients prepared by chefs like herself.
Abdullah started Free Food For All Delaware in 2020. During the pandemic, she couldn’t come together with her Muslim community during Ramadan, so she focused on another part of her faith: Feeding people. She puts an emphasis on quality meals sourced from nearby farmers and gardens.
For Abdullah, the cause is personal. She moved to Wilmington from Brooklyn when she was 9 years old because her family couldn’t afford to stay in New York. She remembers going to food banks and receiving items that were expired or “off”. When she feeds people now, Abdullah aims to serve them dignity alongside high-quality meals.
“I never want people to feel like they’re eating leftovers,” she said.
Why incentivize retailers?
SB 254 (S) follows similar efforts in other states to combat food insecurity with public sector incentives, including New Jersey’s Food Desert Relief Tax Credit Program. Nationally, the Healthy Food Access for All Americans Act, introduced in March, would also spur investment in food deserts by incentivizing grocery stores through tax credits and grants.
Delaware, however, would leverage mostly federal and philanthropic grants and programs to fund food providers.
Brown, the bill’s sponsor, said he not only aims to address food insecurity “up and down our state” through the legislation; he wants to expand economic opportunity by supporting culturally and ethnically-diverse grocers.
“There are many, many Caribbean, African, and Hispanic grocers throughout our state but particularly in the Second Senate District that I represent,” Brown said of the Wilmington-area district. “I absolutely believe that there is a role for the state government to play in supporting these small business owners, and so this grocery initiative stands up the infrastructure for us to be able to do that.”
The bill was designed to target existing retail locations like convenience and corner stores that don’t often carry nutritious foods.
SB 254 (S) is partly modeled after the Healthy Food Retail Initiative (HFRI), which the Delaware Council on Farm & Food Policy began in 2021 to connect small retailers like mini marts and convenience stores with local farmers.
“Being able to access food in your own community, within walking distance, is significantly important,” said Nikko Brady, the director of agriculture and environmental affairs for Gov. John Carney. “Making sure that there are healthy food options in those types of stores, is what we really set out to do with that initiative.”
Jim Patel’s mini mart businesses in Harrington and Farmington were among the first participants in the pilot. Since 2010, he’s sold typical convenience store items like to-go food, deli items, chips and candy. Through the HFRI, he received a free refrigerated display case in 2022 to stock local, farm-fresh produce delivered to his doorstep each week.
Similar to the council’s initiative, Brown’s bill would provide equipment, technical assistance and incentives for retailers to stock fresh foods.
“Providing financial support to existing grocers and retail outlets is a significant and important part — but only a part — of a larger conversation on why there are food deserts,” Brady said. “There’s a lot at play in terms of attracting grocery stores to food deserts.”
For now, Patel said he’ll continue selling fresh produce when items are in-season.
“It helps everybody,” Patel said. “Fresh produce is always a good thing to sell.”
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Taylor Goebel is a freelance reporter. The native Delawarean is also a former News Journal reporter. Reach her at taylormorgangoebel@gmail.com.
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