More Produce Vendors Would “Take Anti-Obesity Fight to Our Streets”

Anti-hunger advocates praised the joint announcement today by Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn that they would be seeking to increase the number of fresh produce street vendors and supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods.

“We are pleased by the steps announced today by the Mayor and the Speaker. Hunger and obesity are often flip-sides of the same malnutrition coin, and both are worsened when people in low-income neighborhoods can’t find and/or can’t afford nutritious foods,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “The City has started to make some progress in helping bodegas and convenience stores obtain more nutritious food. However, the Mayor and the Speaker are absolutely correct in knowing that much more needs to be done. Certainly, increasing the number of produce vendors and supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods will help a great deal. We are particularly pleased that the City will now ‘take the anti-obesity battle to our streets’ by empowering more New Yorkers to sell fresh produce directly to pedestrians in areas with high levels of foot traffic.”

Research by the Coalition and other entities has consistently demonstrated that low-income neighborhoods often lack access to fresh, affordable foods – and especially have less access to fresh fruits and vegetables – in part because they lack sufficient street vendors of such products and because they have fewer supermarkets, which tend to have a wider selection of healthy food choices than do convenience stores and bodegas. This gap in affordable and nutritious food contributes to the problems of both hunger and obesity in New York City, which, in turn, contribute to the city’s rates of diabetes, premature births, heart disease, and cancer. Said Berg, “Given that food access is such a complex issue anywhere – and particularly daunting in a place as vast and diverse as New York City – there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to this problem. Yet today’s announcements are important next steps. They will both aid public health and boost neighborhood-based entrepreneurship and job creation. I hope that no business interest puts profit over public health by opposing these common-sense proposals of the Mayor and the Speaker.”

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) is a nonprofit umbrella group that represents the more than 1,200 nonprofit soup kitchens and food pantries in New York City and the more than 1.3 million low-income New Yorkers who are forced to use them. The Coalition works to both meet the immediate food needs of low-income New Yorkers and enact innovative solutions to help them move "beyond the soup kitchen" to self-sufficiency.