Municipal Policy Options for Healthy Food Access in Stores and Restaurants

Introduction

Counties, cities, towns, and other municipalities can use a variety of policy tools to improve food offerings in their communities. This resource focuses on ordinances and other formalized municipal policies that address healthy food access in food stores and restaurants. It complements the policy examples and legal strategies included in the “Get” section of the Healthy Food Policy Project’s Food System Crosswalk.

This resource is not meant to be comprehensive; rather it provides a sampling of different approaches from around the country as a guide for healthy food advocates, food policy councils, and local policymakers. In reviewing this resource, please note that there are other legal, community planning, and programmatic strategies not discussed here that can affect store and restaurant environments including, for example, safe food handling laws; urban agriculture laws to increase the ability of local, affordable produce; and efforts to address store and restaurant bicycle, pedestrian, and mass transit accessibility.

In addition, there are other retail or retail-like environments that affect community food offerings that can and should be considered when assessing opportunities to increase healthy food offerings throughout a community, such as government-operated food stalls, cafeterias and vending machines, mobile markets, produce carts, farmers’ markets, market gardens, vending machines, meal programs, food shelves, food pantries, and food bank locations.

Keep in mind that not all policy types will work in all communities and that policies relating to healthy food access can sometimes run up against state and federal preemption issues or other conflict of law issues not discussed here.