Food Deserts in Canadian Cities

“Food deserts” refer to urban neighbourhoods where residents have little or no access to stores and restaurants that provide fresh, healthy and affordable foods (Canadian Environmental Health Atlas, n.d.). These areas may also be identified being served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy and affordable food option, and the possibly to find a grocery store or supermarket within walking distance is low (Sisiopiku & Barbour, 2014; Canadian Environmental Health Atlas, n.d). Due to its potential negative impact on the diet quality and quantity, food deserts have surfaced as spaces of concern for communities, public health authorities and researchers in the past decades (Slater, Epp-Koop, Jakilazek & Green, 2017). Following the existing literatures, food deserts also manifest socio-spatial polarization as certain groups of disadvantaged population are more likely to live in these areas. Lower-income households are more susceptible to have the lowest accessibility to grocery stores and supermarket access (Sisiopiku & Barbour, 2014). 

Food deserts are a significant health and economic issue, the lack of buying power in low-income neighborhoods poses a major obstacle to attracting stores back to these areas. (LeClair & Aksan, 2014 p.537)

Distance and coverage measures for the centroid of the community to the supermarkets and farmers’ markets were the basis for identifying food deserts (Lu & Qiu, 2015). The research identified eight communities in which there is a low access but with high need to healthy food namely Kincora, Hidden Valley, Citadel, Rocky Ridge, Silver Springs, Discovery Ridge, Bridgeland/Riverside and Applewood Park (Lu & Qiu, 2015). However, taking into account the income factor and other sociodemographic factors of the communities only Bridgeland/Riverside and Applewood Park were acknowledged as food deserts (Lu & Qiu, 2015).

The study visualized the locations of the supermarkets such as Real Canadians Superstores, Sobeys, Safeways, warehouse club stores and supercentres, as well as the farmers' markets (Lu & Qiu, 2015). Data was obtained from various data sources including City of Calgary Open Data Catalogue for the location of the grocery chains and 2011 community-level Calgary Civic Census, Alberta Open Data Portal for farmers' markets location, University of Calgary Libraries for the income data, and CanMap RouteLogistics for the city’s road and network information (Lu & Qiu, 2015). ArcGIS 10.2 was utilized to measure the distance and coverage of the supermarket and farmers' market distribution in Calgary by performing the network analyst tool (Lu & Qiu, 2015). The location-allocation function was also used to identify the best potential location to set up a new healthy food retailer (Lu & Qiu, 2015).

The research has identified the presence of food desert in Winnipeg, a city that has one of the largest populations of urban poor in Canada, and revealed that 9% of the population in the Winnipeg Health Region was living in an urban food desert (Slater et al., 2017). The downtown residential communities (Downtown and Point Douglas) are most likely to be impacted by food deserts, as well as some neighbourhoods in the outer suburbs, and these areas were also identified to have immense number of low-income residents (Slater et al., 2017).

The study calculated two food desert scenarios. The first food desert scenario has a dissemination block in the lowest income quintile, and has a dissemination block centroid ≥ 500 metres from a national chain grocery store, while the second food desert scenario has a dissemination block in the lowest income quintile, and has a dissemination block centroid ≥ 500 metres from a national chain grocery store OR a full-service grocery store (Slater et al., 2017). The study obtained information regarding food retail establishment from Yellow Pages (not digital version) which was verified by the public health dietitians and community facilitators from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (Slater et al., 2017). Moreover, the 2011 Canadian Census data at the dissemination-area (DA) level was used to classify the areas by average household income (Slater et al., 2017). The researchers geodecoded the 2014 Manitoba population health registry to the dissemination block-level using the six-digit postal codes (Slater et al., 2017). In identifying the food desert, the geodesic distance of 500 metres or less to a grocery store from 5500 dissemination blocks was calculated (Slater et al., 2017). With the automated scripts, the Epi Info version 3.5.4 was utilized to do the calculations necessary, and the tabular outputs were exported into ArcGIS 10.2 for mapping (Slater et al., 2017).

The use of GIS technology is becoming more prevalent and effective in mapping and visualizing patterns of access to food stores (Opfer, 2010). Although this phenomenon is not as much widespread in Canada as in the United States of America (USA), there are literatures set in Canadian cities which revealed that food desert exists. Living in a food desert can negatively affect people’s overall health and their quality of life, most especially the vulnerable and disadvantaged population (Larsen & Gilliland, 2008). Food deserts is not only an issue on environmental equity, but a socioeconomic as well. Understanding and recognizing the causes and implications of food inequalities in urban areas are necessary to tackle the problem and even to prevent this from worsening. Analysis can contribute to create or guide new policies in the future urban planning, leaving no one behind.

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Lu, W. & Qiu, F. (2015). Do food deserts exist in Calgary, Canada?. The Canadian Geographer, 59(3), 267-282. DOI: 10.1111/cag.12176

Opfer, P.R. (2010, June 2). Using GIS Technology to Identify and Analyze ‘Food Deserts’ on the Southern Oregon Coast. Retrieved April 8, 2021 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44389674_Using_GIS_Technology_to_Identify_and_

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Sisiopiku, V. & Barbour, N. (2014, June). Use of GIS Spatial Analysis to Identify Food Deserts in the State of Alabama. Athens Journal of Health, 1(2), 91-104. doi=10.30958/ajh.1-2-2.

Slater, J., Epp-Koop, S., Jakilazek, M., & Green, C. (2017, October). Food deserts in Winnipeg, Canada: a novel method for measuring a complex and contested construct. Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention in Canada, 37(10), 350-356.  https://doi.org/10.24095/hpcdp.37.10.05