225155 Virtual Supermarket Project: A solution to food deserts plaguing Baltimore City

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 : 8:50 AM - 9:10 AM

Jennifer Monti, Medical Resident , School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Timonium, MD
In the modern American city, it is easier to purchase a fast food hamburger than a banana and skim milk. We established the Virtual Supermarket Project (VSP) in Baltimore to transform urban food deserts into neighborhoods that enjoy convenient, rapid access to affordable, healthy food. The program was designed to broker a common delivery point in underserved urban neighborhoods within the catchment areas of existing supermarket delivery services.VSP partnered with community groups in food deserts to enable pooled purchasing and same-day supermarket delivery to local neighborhood points via weekly Internet ordering. We removed barriers to Internet purchasing by providing an Internet connection and credit card to guarantee individuals' purchases. Over three months, 39 individuals made $3300 worth of purchases through the VSP. Approximately 70% of funds were dedicated to fruits, vegetables, poultry, dairy, or non-food items. By organizing the low income market at discrete delivery points and working directly with a retailer, the VSP was also able to accept food stamps for online transactions and remove delivery fees. These data demonstrate that the establishment of Internet-based grocery delivery services at strategic sites can positively impact the food desert crisis plaguing urban communities. Neighborhoods and public health want healthier food; industry wants to sell it to them. Removal of the access barrier via the power of the global, online marketplace can be a transformative step towards ensuring that all consumers in the United States, regardless of location, race, or income levels, can access a range of healthy foods at fair prices.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify how social entrepreneurship frameworks help solve the problem of food deserts. Demonstrate how low-income, food desert communities can benefit from utilization of online supermarkets to improve access to healthy foods. Present a framework for the development of virtual supermarkets in food desert communities nationwide.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I established the project and did all the work.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4028.0: Food access - the retail food environment