Food Retail Survey!

A huge part of my research this summer revolves around surveys. One of the two surveys we use is a survey of local food resources, which is the scientific term for a grocery store. Just before the holiday, I went with a member of the community, a social worker named Jackie (who received her master’s degree from U of M, GO BLUE!), to survey a handful of grocery stores in the area. Starting at Whole Foods in midtown, we stopped at several grocery stores on Gratiot and another on Jefferson.
I was lucky to have Jackie with me for this outing, as she has been very involved in the local food system and offered a lot of insight I couldn’t have gotten otherwise. At one of the stores we visited, she told me about how her coalition had helped the stores new owners make positive changes and rework the store’s image, describing what a mess the place had been years ago.
I am using the sample currently to help develop surveying and analysis tools, so the small sample size isn’t too much of an issue. And while the size of the sample may be too small to be statistically significant, it does show that food prices in the area are about 25% higher than the national average, and still 20% higher than the regional average, reinforcing the common understanding that food is outrageously expensive in the city. I also observed that produce selection in most of the stores was extremely limited, while all the stores had supermarket-sized meat and frozen food sections, further revealing an imbalance in the supply side.
Looking forward to the (end of) data analysis!