The Whole Foods being built on Broad and Washington is set to open its doors in February 2025, and although it may seem like a typical grocery store opening, its addition in Falls Church has a more complicated backstory than what appears.
Whole Foods is marketed to consumers as a high-end market known for its selection of healthy and organic foods, however the availability of these products is very subjective to who you are and dependent upon how much money you make.
A large portion of Whole Foods consumers live in high income areas. That said, this means more often in low income areas, fresh produce such as the products Whole Foods provides can be difficult to come by, a concept known as food deserts.
The Whole Foods brand knows this concept well, and for that reason, markets its products to higher earners. This means that most Whole Foods locations are located in high income areas, further worsening the food desert crisis.
While one could argue that the reason Whole Foods focuses on high income areas is because it charges higher prices than most grocery stores for its items, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s contributing to the food desert crisis by targeting a certain wealth of the population which gives them access to healthy food and completely ignoring another.
Food deserts are also a very important factor in the obesity epidemic. When your circumstances make obtaining fresh food very difficult, it’s even more difficult to maintain a healthy diet, and without affordable options, many people turn to processed and calorie dense food, contributing to weight gain.
The addition of a Whole Foods in Falls Church continues to prove the point of food deserts, as the median household income in Falls Church is $154,000, compared to the US average of $78,000. This adds yet another source of healthy food in a high income area while many low income areas don’t have any access to healthy food, another reminder of the food desert crisis.
Falls Church already has many different available grocery stores providing many sources of organic food, and therefore I find the addition of a Whole Foods to be extremely unnecessary, especially seeing how in other parts of the US there isn’t an available source of healthy food for miles.
In a perfect world, grocery stores that provide healthy foods such as Whole Foods would lower the prices of its produce and start having locations in low income areas, providing consumers with an available source of healthy food regardless of income. However, this is very unlikely to happen as the brands risk losing profit if they were to make these changes.
For these reasons, the food desert crisis continues to worsen in the US year after year, and to me, the Whole Foods being built on Broad St. serves as a massive reminder of food deserts and proof of its effects.
