Feb 22, 2024
Dollar stores are the fastest growing food retailer in the United States, both by sheer number of stores and consumer food purchases. Just two corporations, Dollar General and Dollar Tree, which also owns Family Dollar, operate more than 35,000 stores across the country. However, a growing body of research reveals that dollar stores offer limited healthy food options. Dollar stores shape the food environments of communities, especially in the South and Midwest regions and communities in rural areas with substantial shares of Black and Latin people and households with limited financial resources. What do we know about the impact dollar stores have on these communities and the overall wellbeing of community members? The Center for Science in the Public Interest conducted a national survey to understand how people perceive and actually use dollar stores. Today we will talk with lead author of this study, Senior Policy Scientist Sara John.
Interview Summary
My first question is what do we know about dollar stores
and healthy food access?
There are more than 35,000-dollar stores across the country. So, to
put that large number into context for people like me who have
trouble processing them, that's more dollar stores than McDonald's,
Starbucks and Walmarts combined. As you also mentioned, just two
companies, Dollar General and Dollar Tree, control nearly all of
them. Dollar stores really play a large role in food acquisitions
for households. They can be especially important for households
with limited incomes and those living in rural communities. These
smaller store formats are much smaller than your typical grocery
store or supermarket and tend to stock fewer fresh and healthy
items. So, the body of evidence is still growing and we're still
trying to figure out really how dollar stores interact with the
food environment, whether or not they're driving out existing or
potential new grocery stores or whether they're filling important
food gaps in communities that otherwise lack food access.
I am really blown away by the number. I must admit I did
not appreciate that they have 35,000 stores across the US. I know
that there is a growing body of literature, as you suggested. One
of our colleagues, Sean Cash at Tufts has been working in this
space along with others in various disciplines have been thinking
about the role of dollar stores. I'm interested to understand why
CSPI conducted a national survey of those or perceptions, and what
were some of the key findings?
As I mentioned, there's a lot of outstanding questions we still
don't know. There have been more than 50 communities across the
country that have already passed policies at the local level to ban
or improve new dollar stores in their communities. But we don't
understand community perceptions, usage and just I guess more
plainly what people want from dollar stores. So, CSPI really wanted
to take a stance to make policy, corporate, and research
recommendations on this very quickly and growing retail format. But
before doing so, we wanted to really make sure that we're centering
our recommendations around what community members really want from
dollar stores. We decided to conduct a national survey. We ended up
having over 750 respondents from across the country of people with
limited financial resources that lived near a dollar store. I have
to say we were pretty surprised by our findings, especially given
this popular sentiment that we have seen in the news media and with
a lot of the local policy action. I would say that we found overall
positive dollar store perceptions that people really are relying on
dollar stores for food. But I would say just as many people want
them to make healthy foods more available, affordable, and
accessible.
Could you help me understand how did people find them
beneficial? What were some of the things that you discovered, in
terms of the benefits? But I'd like to also hear what were the
points of contention? Where did they want some
difference?
Community members had overall positive perceptions. I think there
was about 82% of the survey respondents said that dollar stores
helped their community rather than harmed it. And a lot of the key
things that came up in the qualitative responses in our survey and
the focus groups that we used to inform the survey was this
overarching multifaceted concept of convenience. People said things
like the store proximity, that they didn't have to walk a mile
within the store itself to get to milk, and just an overall quick
shopping trip. They also mentioned the affordability of products
there. You know, not having to say no when shopping with their kids
to something that's on the shelf. And then also a selection of
specialty items - a lot of like different seasonal fare and things.
Even using the phrase "thinking of the dollar stores as like going
on a treasure hunt." You never quite know what's going to be there
on the shelves. However, as you mentioned, there was also many
deterrents listed for dollar stores as well. Things they could do
better. So, low quality of products, the lack of predictable
product availability, sometimes having bare shelves or not enough
store supervision to be able to keep those shelves stocked. And
also, the store appearance, both inside and out. Things like
graffiti, trash, cluttered aisles. Those are all things that people
that both shopped and did not shop at dollar stores noted in the
survey. And all of this also kind of leads to another key theme
that I mentioned at an overarching level, that people really wanted
dollar stores to do more in terms of making healthy foods more
accessible to them. So, 81% of our survey respondents thought
dollar stores should stock more healthy items, and nearly as many
thought they should do more to market and identify healthy options.
We also included a list of more specific interventions of things
that dollar stores could do to make healthy products more
available, accessible, and affordable and one of the top responses
was to provide SNAP fruit and vegetable discounts, kind of as one
might see in like a Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program at
dollar stores as well.
I'm really intrigued by something you all did in the
survey. You looked at differences, particularly between SNAP
participants and those who potentially are SNAP eligible, but
non-participants. Are there any key findings you want to highlight
about differences between those two
groups?
Yes. Many respondents generally mentioned being able to stretch
their budget at the dollar store and this included more SNAP
participants purchasing more food with their SNAP benefits at
dollar stores. So, this was across many healthy food categories. We
also saw SNAP participants felt more strongly that dollar stores
should be held more accountable for the health of their communities
as well.
This is really fascinating. These findings are part of what
leads you to some of the key policy recommendations. I'd be
interested to understand a little bit more about what are the
policies that you all thought should be considered or corporate
response and even research action based on these
findings.
I'll highlight just a few. You know the first one at the federal
level is strengthening SNAP retailer stocking standards. So, the
vast majority of dollar stores do participate in the SNAP program
and currently SNAP authorized retailers are required to stock a
small number of items. So, three varieties of items across four
different categories. However, if the SNAP program did have
stronger stocking standards that better aligned with nutrition
promoting foods like in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, then
all SNAP authorized retailers including dollar stores, would be
required to stock more healthy items to participate in the program.
Which is of course a huge benefit to the community. But also, a
really important part of the business model of SNAP authorized
retailers including dollar stores. At the local level, I already
mentioned that more than 50 communities across the country have
passed local policies, mostly to stop the spread of dollar stores
such as through dollar store density ordinances. These look like
saying a new dollar store can't locate within, let's say an
existing mile, of a current dollar store. However, these policies
are really only getting at new dollar stores and don't really do
anything to address the existing 35,000. We also see an opportunity
to strengthen and improve upon these existing policies and address
what we found in the survey that community members want by
requiring dollar stores to stock healthier food, make it more
available, such as through healthy stocking standards or healthy
food overlays in the local zoning code or even exempting dollar
stores from these dispersal limits if they do stock a specific
variety or number of healthy staple foods. At the corporate level,
we're hopeful that this survey and its results make the business
case to dollar stores for stocking healthier foods, making them
more widely available. We've seen already actually both Dollar
General and Dollar Tree moving in this direction. Dollar General,
especially. I think about 16% of their current stores now do offer
fresh produce. So, they're building out their supply chain, their
distribution centers, and I would say retrofitting and redesigning
stores to be able to make more fresh and healthy foods available.
But we think they can do more, and especially do more in terms of
prioritizing fresh food expansion in areas with lower incomes and
limited food access. Many of these dollar store models started by
locating in rural areas. We think if they could really leverage
their ubiquity and where they're currently located to spread
healthy food access to those communities especially, it could make
a really big difference. We also have seen dollar stores in recent
years put out public environmental social governance or ESG
priorities. We think that these should be expanded and really
prioritize healthy food access and nutrition goals. And one more
thing I'll say around corporate recommendations is the expansion of
the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and
Children or WIC authorization of dollar stores. Currently, based on
our scan of the current list of WIC authorized retailers, there are
no corporate dollar stores that are currently WIC authorized. By
participating in WIC, and by adhering to those much more rigorous
healthy stocking standards, it could do a lot to make a variety of
healthy product, fresh produce, whole grains, dairy, baby food,
formula more accessible to moms and kids.
I have to ask this question as a researcher, what are some
important questions that the survey really prompted you to think
more about or would like to have others come in and support
research in this area?
There are so many. As I mentioned, the evidence in this space is
really nascent, but is growing. So, one thing I would highlight is
that we really are proud of this survey and its national scope.
However, the survey doesn't reflect all communities and their
desires and wishes. And so we hope that this survey could be used
as a model and could be replicated in local communities to inform
local policy and corporate intervention. We also think there's a
lot to still do to better understand the current dollar store food
environment. There have been some studies that have been done at
small scale in some states and localities, but we think that
current instruments could be better adapted and specifically
tailored to the dollar store environment to better understand them
and their variation across the country. Especially as we start to
see this shift in corporate practices. There is a lot of, again,
variation in terms of different dollar stores and what they're
offering. We also really hope that we could see dollar store
corporations, and maybe this is overly ambitious, but to
collaborate with researchers to better understand what corporations
already know, to better lift up what challenges are associated with
increasing the stock and availability of healthier foods. We know
that cost space and supply chain complexities, this is not an easy
solution, and so how can researchers work together with corporate
dollar stores to figure this out. Also, we'd be really interested
in piloting healthy food marketing interventions, thinking about
how this shift in healthy product placement, price and promotion
might be impacting customer purchases, customer food consumption,
and ultimately health.
Wow, this is a great set of ways for a variety of
researchers to come in. It sounds like not only could academics do
some of this work, but it sounds like there may even be space for
citizen scientists to come in and look at what's going on in the
food environments where they are to help inform that conversation.
I think this is really fascinating. What's next for CSPI's work on
dollar stores.
CSPI really hopes to be able to support efforts to advance the
recommendations we've made in this report. At least one I'll
highlight that we've already started to work on, is we just
launched a corporate campaign; Don't Discount Families, Dollar
General. Really pressuring Dollar General to improve healthy food
access at their stores through these WIC expansion efforts that I
referenced earlier. So, making sure that dollar stores expand their
healthy food offerings by adhering to those more rigorous WIC
stocking standard requirements. Making those foods both available
and more accessible to moms and kids participating in WIC. You
know, that includes fresh, frozen, canned produce, whole grains,
dairy, healthy pantry staples, baby food and formula, but also in
doing so makes healthy foods more available for any customer that
walks through a WIC authorized Dollar store. I would mention that
in ways that you can get involved, please feel free to reach out to
me if you're doing aligned work in this space. We also have a
petition that consumers can sign onto, and we already have
generated over 7,000 emails to Dollar General and that number is
still ticking, so please join our coordinated advocacy efforts and
we also working on a sign-on letter in terms of coalition building
to get organizations and researchers who are supporting healthy
food access through dollar stores. So, I encourage everyone to
check out our resources and again, please be in contact if you have
any questions.
Bio
Sara John is a Senior Policy Scientist at the Center for Science in Public Interest and leads the organization’s federal policy and private sector efforts to create a healthier, more equitable food retail environment. Prior to joining CSPI, Sara served as the Evaluation Director for SNAP incentive programs across New England and worked at the Partnership for a Healthier America. She has a PhD in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts Friedman School, an MS in Education from Johns Hopkins University, and a BS in Biology and BA in Public Policy from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.