SUPERVALU

When it comes to providing nutritious, home-cooked meals, one of the biggest challenges for low-income families is that they may live in neighborhoods that lack grocery stores stocked with competitively priced fresh produce and other healthy food choices. Through our work, PHA encourages grocery chains like SUPERVALU, a retail grocery network and supply chain for other retailers, to open stores in areas that lack access to healthy, affordable food so that where people live doesn’t adversely affect what they can eat.

SUPERVALU, a 140-year old company which has long-specialized in providing affordable produce to underserved areas, has committed to build another 250 Save-A-Lot stores over the next five years in or around areas that currently have little-to-no access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Just as important, the Save-A-Lot model allows them to keep prices very low, making it even easier for people to make the healthy choice. Their commitment today will serve an additional 3.75 million people and create more than 6,000 jobs.

~ James R. Gavin III, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of the PHA’s board of directors at the time of SUPERVALU’s commitment in 2011

By the end of 2015, SUPERVALU opened new SAVE-A-LOT grocery stores in and around neighborhoods lacking access to fresh fruits and vegetables and other healthy food options – so-called “food desert” areas – including 24 stores in the past year, bringing it just over halfway to its goal. The two dozen most recently opened stores serve close to 200,000 people, including nearly 50,000 low-income individuals and almost 90,000 individuals who previously had little access to groceries. SUPERVALU committed to opening a total of 250 new grocery stores in neighborhoods where residents have little or no access to supermarkets by July 2016.