The New York Times has a interesting short feature on efforts by Walgreens in Chicago to address food deserts by stocking produce and fresh food. They’re calling them “food oases.”
A drugstore might not seem the obvious venue for solving a grocery-store problem, but Walgreens offered something useful: ubiquity. “That’s the exciting thing about Walgreens, they’re in so many places,” Gallagher says. (It was during her research on Detroit that she was struck by the fact that pharmacies were practically the only mainstream chain presence, aside from fast food, in many neighborhoods.) Thus the pharmacy chain did not have to open new stores in food deserts, because it was already operating in plenty of them.
This creative solution was enabled and encouraged by the city government—a great example of a business/public health partnership.
