Groceries more costly for Valley's poor

A lack of supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods creates unsolved paradox.

Published online on Saturday, Jul. 25, 2009

For thousands of people in the central San Joaquin Valley, a tomato costs at least a dollar. So does a single roll of toilet paper. That's the price of being poor.

It's a well-known but unsolved paradox: Poor people often spend more than their middle-class neighbors for groceries.

That includes milk, bread and fresh fruits and vegetables that are grown right here in the Valley. The poor also pay more for staples like toothpaste, diapers and light bulbs.

They have little choice. Traditional supermarket chains, which offer weekly specials and bulk-rate prices, don't often build in low-income urban neighborhoods or farm towns. And many who live in those communities can't easily get to a larger city.

For the Valley's working poor, the "grocery store" often is on the corner or at the nearest gas station, where a six-pack of beer may be cheap, but a gallon of milk is not.

Even those lucky enough to live near a supermarket often leave without the food they want because they can't carry it all home on foot or by bus.

Take Kristine Sevilla. She lives in southeast Fresno, just two blocks from a couple of discount stores, including FoodMaxx. She makes the trip by bicycle several times a week, looking for bargains.

Sevilla, 37, doesn't own a car. She's unemployed and gets $310 a month in welfare for her 11-year-old son. She also gets $190 in food stamps.

She's a careful shopper -- but price is only one consideration. "I have to look at how much everything weighs," she said. "I've had groceries in bags break on me on the way home."

Poor people know that paying $1 for a tomato or $4 for a loaf of white bread at a convenience store means spending twice what they would at a supermarket. But their next chance to shop at a supermarket could be weeks away, said Connie Schneider, nutrition adviser at the University of California Cooperative Extension in Fresno.

"When you're hungry, you're looking at something to fill a stomach," she said.

Food policy experts say this is a problem not just for the poor, but for all taxpayers.

Inadequate access to healthy food increases the risk of obesity and chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, straining health-care resources, the experts say. Children without proper nutrition become sicker, stay sick longer and miss more days of school. Academic performance suffers, which leads to higher dropout rates and to more adults without the skills necessary to secure well-paying jobs.

When a head of lettuce is $1.99 and a box of Raisin Bran is $5, families can't afford to eat healthily, said Margarita Rocha, executive director of Centro La Familia, a Fresno nonprofit that serves low-income families.

"If a tomato didn't cost a full dollar, then they could buy two tomatoes or three tomatoes," Rocha said.

"Or they could buy that one-half gallon of milk they need for their children."

Spending more

In the best of times, people in the Valley are among the poorest in the state. And now, recession is pushing even more into poverty.

At least 20% of the people in Fresno County live in poverty, and in Tulare County, it's nearly 24%, according to the 2007 U.S. Census. It's not much better in Merced, Madera or Kings counties.

For some, food pantries, farmers markets and community gardens help with the food bill. But most must economize at grocery stores.

They buy cheaper cuts of meat, less-expensive produce. Even so, food takes a bigger bite out a poor family's budget than that of a more wealthy family.