By Daniel Breen and Josie Lenora for Little Rock Public Radio.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Little Rock Public Radio-Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation-Public News Service Collaboration.

Several parts of Little Rock can be classified as “food deserts,” or neighborhoods that don't have easy access to a grocery store. Now, city officials are considering a new, at least to Little Rock, solution; a mobile grocery store.

If you stand at the intersection of Chenal Parkway and Bowman Road in west Little Rock, next to Best Buy and The Purple Cow, you’re within a mile of five grocery stores: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Walmart, Sam's Club and a newly-minted Aldi.

But some streets in Little Rock aren’t within a mile of any grocery store. That’s called a food desert, and most of them are in lower-income neighborhoods of central and southwest Little Rock.

Being a mile away from a store may not seem like much, but if you have mobility challenges, or you're low on money, this mile can mean the difference between eating and being hungry.

Virgil Miller is on the Little Rock City Board of Directors. He represents Ward One, which covers downtown and encompasses several food deserts. Miller says he’s talked with constituents who come to him to ask: why am I not near a grocery store?

“Because, in the past, there were several grocery stores in the area. They’ve all closed and relocated,” Miller said.

At their core, grocery stores are businesses. They have to turn a profit, and companies say there just isn't a lot of money to be made in some of these neighborhoods. When the Kroger on Colonel Glenn Road closed in 2022, a representative from the company told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette the store had “lost significant profit for many years and if left open, the losses are projected to get even worse going forward.”

Some neighborhoods are what’s called a food swamp. This means they may be near a McDonald’s or a convenience store, but the quality of food there is so low it can cause health problems down the line.

Little Rock Vice Mayor Kathy Webb has spent much of her career working to combat food deserts, serving on a state food desert task force and as executive director of the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. What most people wanted was a brick-and-mortar store; but, when the team looked at what other communities were doing to fix the food desert problem, she realized that just building a grocery store doesn't always work.

“A nonprofit opened a grocery store in Baltimore, and we were very excited about it… it went out of business,” she said.

Webb said the grocery store was designed by consultants who had success in building supermarkets in suburban areas, but not ones in the inner city.

“They didn’t talk to the people in the neighborhood to find out what they wanted. They didn’t try to become part of the neighborhood.”

Both Miller and Webb heard that Memphis came up with a creative way to combat the food desert problem. And it seemed to work better.

“A mobile grocery store. It’s almost like an 18-wheeler that has been adapted to have an aisle in the middle of it, and on each side they have food,” Miller said.

The mobile grocery store has fresh produce and other staples. Sometimes, customers can order things on request. They move around neighborhoods stopping at two locations a day. Webb and Miller went on a “field trip” to see it in person.

“The nonprofit had developed relationships with the residents… and it’s much more than just a store,” Miller said.

The hope now is to bring a mobile grocery store like this to Little Rock. But the concept isn’t entirely new to the city.

Paul Kroger–no relation to the grocery store chain–is executive director of Vine & Village, a nonprofit based in Little Rock’s University District. They operate a weekly food distribution program called The Orchard, which serves hundreds of families and unsheltered people living in the 72204 ZIP code.

“People start lining up at about 7 in the morning back here with vehicles, and we start distributing at 1. The line will go serpentining through the parking lot like several blocks long,” he said. “We have a whole team of people out here treating it like an assembly line, giving them different things.”

Each Tuesday, a small army of volunteers comes in to run the drive-up program. But food is constantly coming in; Kroger says they keep as much as a quarter-million pounds of food and other household items on hand at any given time, donated from food banks, grocery stores and restaurants. But, Kroger says they’re not your typical food bank.

“Generally you get a box of food, mostly shelf-stable items, but here that’s the minority of what you get. The vast majority, maybe four or five boxes, 40 to 70 pounds each, of fresh fruit, vegetables, high-quality protein, that’s the emphasis here,” he said.

Back in 2016, then-Mayor Mark Stodola came to Vine & Village, asking them for help with the city’s food desert problem. Stodola’s solution sounds familiar–use an old city bus to distribute food to people who can’t travel to get it.

For several years, the bus, dubbed the Fresh2You Mobile Market, made the rounds of all public housing complexes in Little Rock and North Little Rock. They weren’t just focused on alleviating hunger, but ensuring that people were getting healthy, nutritious food in a sustainable way. Kroger says they offered free samples and recipe cards to customers, much like a traditional grocery store.

“So whatever the bus had for that day, they could pick up those items and they could have already tasted something. Could be a smoothie, could be a fresh salad, something that was pretty simple to do but would really be, not only healthy, but it’s gotta be tantalizing to your taste buds.”

Initially, they charged money and accepted public assistance benefits, but ultimately Kroger says they stopped charging.

“Not being able to really provide the volume of food that people really needed to change the course of their nutritional intake, it was just important that we give it for free. So that’s what we’d been doing for the last number of years until we were shut down by the pandemic,” Kroger said.

The Fresh2You Mobile Market pivoted during the COVID-19 pandemic, partnering with World Central Kitchen to distribute hot meals in place of school breakfasts and lunches. But Kroger says their equipment is aging, and the future of Fresh2You is uncertain.

He’s applying for a grant to buy a new bus, which will then likely focus on delivering food to two new micro home villages currently under construction, which will provide temporary housing to people experiencing chronic homelessness.

But even if the city does end up operating a mobile grocery store, as Kroger found out, the cost of food will remain a concern. Marquis Willis is the Chief Data Officer for the City of Little Rock, and has done research on local people living in food deserts. It showed that, yes, transportation was an issue, but there was a larger issue that's harder to solve.

“The bigger issue that we noticed, 63% of our respondents said that the cost of food was a bigger issue,” he said.

Vice Mayor Kathy Webb said that with all the money in the world she would approach the problem differently. She would build a lot of not-for-profit grocery stores and pay-what-you-want restaurants.

But money is an issue. So, she says, hopefully the mobile grocery store will go forward. Right now, it's in the procurement phase with plans to be finalized in the future.


Daniel Breen and Josie Lenora wrote this article for Little Rock Public Radio.


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Supported by federal funding, a nonprofit network is working to ensure Mississippi families have access to the food they will need this winter.

Nearly one in six Mississippians faces food insecurity, according to Feeding America.

Adam Runion, communications coordinator for theMississippi Food Network, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture has a program which allows them to distribute locally grown, fresh produce to more than 400 partner agencies statewide. He said they started with 21 agencies in underserved northwestern delta counties. The funding has helped nearly 5,000 families so far.

"It's able to serve about 200 people at each agency when we started per month, but we've been able to take on more agencies as the program has developed," Runion explained. "That comes out to 4,200 households per month are receiving assistance through this program."

Runion pointed out they offer a variety of programs, including distributing food boxes to qualifying seniors and a backpack program for schools. Students can take the healthy snacks home on weekends, helping to improve their overall health and grades.

Runion added the Mississippi Food Network also offers a monthly mobile pantry, directly serving clients in areas of high need. Funding for the program comes from local organizations.

"In that mobile pantry, we distribute an emergency food box," Runion outlined. "Alongside that, we typically do a protein, which could be anywhere from a chicken to some type of fish, any type of meat. And then, we also try to do fresh vegetables as they're available."

Runion added the network is teaming up with a local television station for a "Turkey Drive" on Thursday. Volunteers will collect donated turkeys and other grocery items outside Kroger stores. Last year, they collected more than 1,100 turkeys and $12,000. This year's goal is to exceed 1,100 turkeys and raise $15,000.


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The nonprofit Feeding Texas Network has announced its priorities for the upcoming legislative session. The food insecurity rate continues to rise in Texas and the organization is encouraging lawmakers to support bills that address the root cause of hunger.

Celia Cole, Feeding Texas Network CEO, said they support bills that will eliminate the backlog of SNAP applications, implement the Summer EBT program and streamline Medicaid reimbursements.

"We are seeing some of the highest rates of hunger in Texas that we've seen in years. We have the second highest rate of food insecurity in the country. People are really struggling to put food on the table and pay for everything else like rent and utilities," Cole explained.

She added their legislative goals are supported by the 20 food banks across the state that serve all 254 counties in Texas.

Lawmakers have already started filing bills for the 89th legislative session. Cole said the network has received support from many members of the legislature in the past, and added their priorities also include addressing other areas of financial strife.

"They include health, housing security, financial security and then also just our local food system - you know - what can we do to strengthen the local food system so that people will have access to fresh, nutritious, affordable foods in their own communities?" she continued.

Cole said hunger is a nonpartisan issue that impacts every county in our state. The legislative session starts January 14th.


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Colorado's leading advocate for people experiencing hunger turns 15 this year and a new report outlined key advances and persistent challenges facing residents across the state.

Elissa Hardy, director of client services for Hunger Free Colorado, cited its work on the Healthy School Meals for All program as a major win. Students in schools opting into the program can now get the nutrition they need to learn, regardless of their parents' ability to pay. She pointed out it is also putting an end to practices such as lunch line shaming.

"This really allowed for reduction in stigma, in discrimination, for those kids on low-cost food programs," Hardy observed. "Because (with the new program) everyone was getting the meals."

Colorado became the third state in the nation to provide free, nutritious breakfast and lunch for all public-school students when voters approved Proposition FF in 2022. Hunger Free Colorado has also helped secure more than $30 million in state funding to fill food banks and pantries with culturally relevant foods communities want, produced by local farmers and ranchers.

When the group started doing outreach for SNAP enrollment in 2009, just four in 10 Coloradans eligible for the program formerly known as food stamps were getting help. Hardy reported today, nearly eight in 10 eligible families are getting food assistance.

"Colorado was one of the lower ranking states, for the number of people who are eligible but not enrolled, and now we are much higher up in that rating," Hardy emphasized. "We now have a team of 20 who are going into the community to do outreach."

Hardy acknowledged there is still work to be done. More than one in 10 Coloradans do not know where their next meal will come from and 17% of Colorado families with children do not earn enough to ensure their kids get the nutrition they need.

"I think it's really easy to think that people have what they need, and they don't," Hardy added. "There is food insecurity in our own neighborhoods, our own neighbors might be struggling. We work with many colleges across the state, and many of the students are struggling."