Youth Assessment of Buffalo Area Food Stores

My name is Javert Boudreau, and I am a sophomore at the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. During the summer of 2013, I participated in MAP’s summer youth program. During this time, we discussed the health of a local area based on where the food comes from. To study this properly we worked with the UB Food Lab.

The Food Lab split us into four groups to observe the types of food carried by stores and the condition of said stores. This was important because it showed that the healthier looking the food and the stores are, the healthier looking the community surrounding it is. It also helped us identify food deserts, or areas with high food insecurity.

The audits relate in a small way to MAP’s mission to get healthy food to the community. The audits tell us what sorts of foods local stores sell, what we should sell more of, and where we should sell it. This can bring more business to MAP from people looking to get cheap, healthy food, but are unable to due to high prices in super markets or just a lack of the foods themselves. This in turn makes the neighborhood around MAP healthier, and can, on a basic level, make it a stronger, nicer place to live.


Click here to see pictures from the audit.

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