Forms of Community Engagement in Neighborhood Food Retail: Healthy Community Stores Case Study Project

Abstract

Community engagement is well established as a key to improving public health. Prior food environment research has largely studied community engagement as an intervention component, leaving much unknown about how food retailers may already engage in this work. The purpose of this study was to explore the community engagement activities employed by neighborhood food retailers located in lower-income communities with explicit health missions to understand the ways stores involve and work with their communities. A multiple case study methodology was utilized among seven retailers in urban U.S. settings, which collected multiple sources of data at each retailer, including in-depth interviews, store manager sales reports, store observations using the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Stores, public documents, and websites. Across-case analysis was performed following Stake’s multiple case study approach. Results indicated that retailers employed a wide variety of forms of community engagement within their communities, including Outreach, Building Relationships through Customer Relations, Giving Back, Partnering with Community Coalitions, and Promoting Community Representation and Inclusiveness. Strategies that built relationships through customer relations were most common across stores; whereas few stores demonstrated community inclusiveness where members participated in store decision making. Findings provide a more comprehensive view of the ways local food retailers aim to develop and sustain authentic community relationships. Additional research is needed to evaluate the impact of community engagement activities on improving community health.

Balancing Mission and Margins: What Makes Healthy Community Food Stores Successful

“…All stores except for Baltimore successfully engaged with community members, including through work with community-based organizations (CBOs) and existing community programs, although the level of community involvement varied across stores, further detailed in Kaur et al, 2022 also in this special issue [ 46 ]. Ultimately, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, DC, Detroit, and Minneapolis reached economically vulnerable community members, with their customer base reflecting the makeup of the broader community.…”

“…Additionally, the role of champions differed for stores with origins within the community (e.g., Buffalo and Minneapolis) from stores with origins external to community (e.g., Boston and DC). Community-led stores had innate community representation, whereas stores with external leadership needed to take additional steps to authentically and meaningfully engage community members, a topic explored more deeply in Kaur et al, 2022 [ 46 ]. In Minneapolis, community members owned and democratically governed the store through their food cooperative or co-op model; co-op owners advocated for improved healthy food access by navigating what is good for the store business, local food system, and community.…”

“…Additional detail on the depth of community engagement and how it varied across stores is further described in Kaur et al, 2022 also in this special issue [ 46 ].…”

A Commentary on the Healthy Community Stores Case Study Project: Implications for Retailers, Policy, and Future Research

“…Overall, a store’s commitment to community engagement was one of the most important factors in a business model [ 17 , 18 ]. This was even more important when socio-cultural differences were present among the store owners/managers and the community residents [ 19 ].…”

“…Additional details about the selection process of the seven stores, their distinct characteristics and contexts, and the study protocol have been previously published as part of this special issue [ 14 ]. Briefly, the seven stores were located in cities across the US mid-west and northeast who served low-to-middle income neighborhoods who were also predominantly immigrant or African American communities [ 14 ] The results of the cross-case analyses, including specific community engagement approaches and strategies used by stores to meet their healthy food accessibility missions, as well as barriers and facilitators, have already been described in other studies within this special issue [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. The focus of this commentary is to draw on the insights from across the HCSCSP studies augmented with relevant literature from multiple fields (e.g., nutrition, food retail, business, and economics) to provide future practice, research, and policy implications that could promote the expansion of mission-driven work around healthy food accessibility across low-income communities.…”