Two Kansas City grocery stores are closing their doors, and some people fear it may create a food desert.
Natasha El-Scari started Rollin' Grocerin 2015. Almost two years later, she now has 96 stops and serves thousands of customers in her rolling grocery store truck. She proudly serves customers in many of Kansas City's food deserts, including area senior homes, community centers and churches.
"We feel like everyone needs to have access to fresh affordable food," said El-Scari. "We definitely see a disparity in Kansas City when we talk about grocery stores that are east of Troost Ave. and moving more towards the urban core."
El-Scari and others fear that access to fresh food will become even more difficult in the coming weeks. Both the Plaza Apple Market on Cleaver II Blvd. and the Thriftway on 38th and Main are going out of business.
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Beth Low-Smith is with the Greater Kansas City Food Policy Coalition.
The organization advocates for a strong regional food system and promotes food policies that positively impact the nutritional health of Greater Kansas City.
The USDA defines a food desert as a high percentage of residents who are low income that live more than a mile from the nearest grocery store. Beth-Low says Kansas City, Missouri has a substantial problem when it comes to food deserts.
"The two grocery store closures are really concerning to us because they are located on a major bus lines. And low income residents often rely on bus routes to do their grocery shopping," said Low-Smith.
The map below shows the one-mile radius around the closing grocery stores, Plaza Apple Market and Thriftway. The other icons show current grocery stores in the area.
Beth-Low says the store closings will create challenges for low-income residents, but says it's unclear if they'll create another food dessert as defined by the USDA because there are grocery stores within a mile of both stores.
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Lisa Benson can be reached at lisa.benson@kshb.com.
