Food Deserts and Supermarket Culture in Denver, Colorado

While the food desert-supermarket (FDS) approach remains a favored one among policymakers, scholars are growing increasingly critical of it. I contribute to this growing body of critical literature by examining the FDS approach through the lens of “cultural appropriateness.” While much of the critical academic literature has thus far focused on the food desert side of the approach, here I turn my attention to the proposed solution: supermarkets. The essay focuses on ethnicity, nationality and language as cultural dimensions important in thinking about and devising policy intended to mitigate food insecurity in food deserts. Field research in supermarkets in the Denver metropolitan area found that supermarkets routinely and systematically promote Western cultural norms, marginalize non-Western cultures and foods, and ostracize non-English speakers.