Supermarkets aren’t the only answer to food insecurity in Camden

At least three proposals to build a supermarket in Camden have been floated since 1990, only to fall apart. Pathmark, the city’s last suburban-style chain grocery store, closed in 2013.

Nearly all of Camden ranks first among the 50 top “food deserts,” according to a 2022 state analysis, despite the independently owned Save A Lot discount supermarket that has operated in the Pathmark site on Mount Ephraim Avenue since 2021.

The analysis by the N.J. Economic Development Authority (EDA) also lists East Camden and adjacent sections of Pennsauken Township in fifth place.

The EDA began taking applications in December for a $40 million Food Desert Relief Tax Credit Program to encourage development of major supermarkets.

The grants are among the incentives offered in EDA’s $300 million effort to make more fresh, healthy, and affordable food available in so-called food deserts statewide. Some critics say the term is misleading, although it remains in use by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as in New Jersey and other states.

“Our vision, which has been championed from the office of Gov. Murphy on down, recognizes that there’s not just one cause of food insecurity,” said Tara Colton, the EDA’s chief economic security officer.

Working with an advisory board made up of Camden residents, the Community Foundation of South Jersey has established a Camden Food Fund to “invest in the food system in the city,” said Andy Fraizer, the foundation’s executive director.

The fund will provide capital to new or existing business owners who live in Camden and want to “help to advance a healthy, equitable local food economy,” he said.

As many as 65% of the city’s residents experience some degree of food insecurity, according to a 2020 report by the 26-member Camden Food Access Work Group. The term generally applies to a person or household with no option other than occasionally or repeatedly skipping meals.

“People who are facing food insecurity have needs that are not just about supermarkets,” Colton said. “We’re building a tool kit of resources, funding, and support that can be [utilized by] smaller stores, food pantries, and other entities.”

While supermarkets have left the city, neighborhood stores such as Litwin Food Market in North Camden endure. They’re also where many local residents, like Alexis Freas, do their grocery shopping.

“This store is awesome,” she said, leaving Litwin’s with a container of hot food one afternoon last week. “I know people from downtown who come all the way up here because of the food.”

A neighborhood institution at Eighth and Elm Streets since 1959, Litwin’s in recent years has bolstered its stock of fresh fruits and vegetables as a participant in the Healthy Corner Store Initiative. More than 40 corner stores in the city participate in the program of The Food Trust, a Philadelphia nonprofit.

Jose “Junior” Placencia is the son of one of Litwin’s owners and also works for the Food Trust. “I was born and raised in Camden, and I started working at the store when I was 10,” he said, standing near a small table that held healthy juice samples.

Customers surged in and out of the door and up and down the produce aisle, where plantains, avocados, yuccas, yautias, and yams shared space with tomatoes, potatoes, and bananas.

The Healthy Corner Store program provides educational materials, as well as coupons and other incentives, to interest customers in healthier food options. The program also provides refrigerated units where “grab-and-go” items can be attractively displayed.

Placencia said it’s important to him to “be able to give customers options they can incorporate” into their diets.

About one-third of Camden’s 71,000 people live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The grants, loans, and technical assistance available to smaller-scale grocery stores or related businesses include $125,000 for preliminary work on what EDA describes as “a state-of-the-art, multipurpose food market, eatery, and indoor farm facility” in the former Ruby Match Co. building near the Camden Waterfront.

While they welcome the state’s initiatives, residents, store owners, and nonprofit food providers worry that food insecurity in Camden is getting worse.

“In 2023 we served 147,230 meals. It was the highest number in our 47-year history,” said Carrie Kitchen-Santiago, executive director of Cathedral Kitchen, a feeding and culinary training program headquartered in East Camden.

“A new grocery store would help,” she said. “But it won’t solve the problem because many people in Camden just don’t have enough money to buy the food they need.”

The Food Bank of South Jersey, which serves Camden, Burlington, Gloucester, and Salem Counties, also has seen a dramatic increase in demand in the last year.

“In 2022, we served 112,000 individuals a month,” said executive director Sarah Geiger. “In 2023, the number was 170,000.”

The Pennsauken-based nonprofit also serves as the “backbone” of the Camden Food Security Collective, a network of organizations that collaborate and advocate to help city residents have more access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food, Geiger said.

Established in 2021, the collective has about 30 members and also includes health-care institutions because food insecurity and poor nutrition are associated with diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic physical and mental health conditions.

One such participant is the Virtua Health System and its Mobile Grocery Store service, a kind of healthy, affordable supermarket on wheels serving Camden and Burlington Counties.

The collective also works with New Jersey’s Office of the Food Security Advocate, established in 2021 to focus on private and public efforts against food insecurity in the state.

”This is the first food security office in the country that is based at the highest level of state government and emphasizes New Jersey’s dedication to building food security and addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty,” said Mark Dinglasan, executive director of the office.

Geiger and others also credit the Campbell Soup Co. and its Healthy Communities program, which the Camden-based firm initiated in 2011, as an inspiration for and essential supporter of the collective’s work.

“The goal is to increase financial security in the community, transform the local food economy, and create community hubs” to connect people in Camden not only with healthy, affordable food, but also health care and other services, Geiger said.

“This is a hybrid version of a discount store because of our fresh cut meat and fresh produce,” Shawn Rinnier said from the sales floor of the Save A Lot in the city’s Fairview section. The store is the closest thing to a conventional supermarket in the city.

“Food desert? Not here,” said Camden resident Denise Stone, who has worked for 32 years as a clerk in Save A Lot stores.

Customer Freddy Rodriguez drives across the city from North Camden to shop because “they’ve got better prices in here,” he said.

With the EDA’s assistance, Rinnier said he hopes to renovate and expand his Save A Lot in Atlantic City, where a developer’s plan to build a supermarket fell through.

Jeff Metzger is the president and publisher of Food Trade News, a Maryland-based professional publication that covers the East Coast grocery store scene. While urban stores have long offered challenges, as well as opportunities, he said, an evermore competitive retail food ecosystem makes building supermarkets in cities even more difficult.

“What we have seen is a huge scaling back of brick-and-mortar in general,” said Metzger, adding that online food selling and competition from dollar stores are “slicing and dicing away at traditional supermarkets.”