Corner Stores

In many communities that lack supermarkets and grocery stores, families in urban and rural areas depend on corner stores and other small-scale stores to purchase food. The choices at these stores are often limited to packaged food and very little, if any, fresh produce or healthy snacks. Improving the product mix at smaller stores and addressing other issues of viability—such as sourcing and distribution, pricing, food quality and freshness and customer service—are strategies that build upon existing community resources to enhance access to healthy food in underserved areas. Check out The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative to learn more about stocking and selling healthier options.

Key Challenges

Improving corner and convenience stores is less complex and costly than constructing a new store, and builds on existing community resources. However, smaller scale corner store projects have some challenges.

• Competing with the price, quality, and selection advantages of grocery stores. Small-scale stores do not have the buying power that can translate into lower prices for consumers.
• Sourcing, pricing, and stocking produce requires knowledge and proper refrigeration units or adequate shelf space.

Key Strategies

Strategies to address these challenges can include:

• Reduce the risk, and the costs, for small stores. Community groups can encourage small stores to increase shelf space for fresh produce by documenting unmet demand, subsidizing the additional costs, and providing managers with tips to help them buy, sell, and display produce. To reduce costs, store owners can collaborate with other stores to jointly buy foods from local farmers.
• Pick the right retailer. Improvement efforts are most successful when merchants are genuinely receptive to selling healthier products and willing to invest in improving long-term viability. Efforts focused on corner stores near schools can help ensure that healthier food and beverage choices are available for children during their school day.
• Increase and capitalize on customer spending power. Advocates can promote resident participation in nutrition assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women with Infants and Children program (WIC) to bolster the purchasing power of local residents, while ensuring that retailers accept WIC and SNAP benefit cards. Community organizations can promote stores that offer healthier food.

In addition to city and statewide financing initiatives that support grocery projects across the country, other policies support corner store development in underserved communities. See the View Policy Efforts by State page for more information.

Tools and Resources

Key Resources for Funding Corner Stores

Because fresh food access is a key issue affecting communities across the country, state and local funding programs have been created specifically for fresh food retail projects, including corner stores.

Other Key Resources

• Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters, The Food Trust and PolicyLink
• Healthy Corner Store Toolkit: Sell Healthy! Guide, The Food Trust
• Healthy Food and Small Stores: Strategies to Close the Distribution Gap In Underserved Communities, The Food Trust
• The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative
• Good. To Go. San Jose Healthy Corner Store Program, The Health Trust

Success Stories

• Louisville’s Shawnee Market, Louisville, Kentucky: Shawnee Market used $20,000 of a Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant (an initiative of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that funds 50 communities to reduce chronic disease related to obesity and tobacco) to purchase refrigeration units, display racks, new signs, and construction improvements.