Map shows "Fresh Start" to addressing Food Deserts in St. Joe


The news about Fresh Start, a new non-profit grocery store in St. Joseph, bodes well for people without access to affordable and healthy food -- convenience stores don't count. This lack of close access to a food or grocery store in low-income areas is described as a "food desert." Fresh Start, bordering two US census tracts designated as food deserts, is not waiting for grocery store chains to address this problem.


How is a food desert defined?

The US Department of Agriculture defines a food desert as

a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.
  • To qualify as a "low-income community," a census tract must have either: 1) a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher, OR 2) a median family income at or below 80 percent of the area's median family income;
  • To qualify as a "low-access community," at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles).
This map shows two census tracts in St. Joseph, Missouri that have been designated as food deserts, one of which is comprised of 100% of the people with low access to a grocery store.

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