Food Mapping

What is food mapping?

Food mapping has been defined as the process of finding out where people can buy and eat food, and what the food needs of local people are. It is a type of needs assessment that aims to identify the geographical areas or communities that have the greatest needs in terms of access to food. This generally relates to access to affordable fresh fruit and vegetables and other healthy foods, however, food mapping may also be used to identify the availability of other specific types of food e.g. local produce or ethnic foods. The area covered by a food mapping exercise could range from a small village or urban estate, to large city or a whole county. Food mapping is one of the first activities that should take place when you are thinking about setting up a food project, and even more so when planning to deliver a programme of different activities to increase access to healthy foods. This is so that you can identify what problems there are with accessing food in an area and then plan initiatives that aim to deal with these problems.

Why carry out food mapping?

“Food mapping is an opportunity for policy makers at local and national levels to work with others to develop an evidence base for assessing need, developing action plans and monitoring progress. In doing so, food mapping could help bring about positive change and effectively tackle the interlinking barriers to healthy food access. Food mapping can help inform an appropriate, joined-up and supportive policy framework for improving food access over time” Community Food and Health (Scotland).

Food mapping can be used to get a clearer picture of what types of food initiative or policy changes are needed to address why people may not be eating a healthy balanced diet. It can also help link the local picture to national aims and policy. Improving food access has been highlighted in a number of national policies and strategies. In 1998 the Social Exclusion Unit report “Bringing Britain Together: A National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal” highlighted that in some areas food shops have disappeared and where shops are available, the cost of the cheapest food can be 60 per cent higher than in supermarkets. As a result the poorest often face the highest prices and many don't have access to affordable food. Increasing access to affordable healthy food has also been high on the UK health agenda for some years and was highlighted in the White Paper “Our Healthier Nation”, the Acheson Enquiry into Inequalities in Health, the NHS plan and most recently Choosing Health.

Benefits

The benefits of carrying out a food mapping project are that you can:

Identify which areas have poor access to healthy food and plan initiatives that could increase access.
Map what food initiatives and projects are already taking place in order to avoid duplication.
Gather evidence which can be used in grant applications to secure funding for food projects.
Provide a baseline picture that can then be used to evaluate the success of a project and to set specific targets.

Drawbacks

Food mapping can be time-consuming and expensive and so it is important that it is properly resourced and that you have enough staff and/or volunteers to carry out the work and enough funding to cover expenses. It is also important in a time-limited funded programme that you actually have sufficient time to deliver initiatives after the mapping has been carried out, as mapping should be a means to an end, i.e. improving food access, not the actual end result itself.

How to carry out food mapping in your area?

There are a variety of techniques that can be used to map food access ranging from using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software to using participatory appraisal (PA) methods. The right approach will generally depend on the size of the area that needs to be mapped and the funding, time and resources available to carry out the mapping exercise. For example, the ‘high tech’ approach is more useful over a large area such as county level, whereas at village level or when dealing with an urban estate, community mapping involving local residents may work better.

Food access does not just relate to physical access to food but also to economic access:

Physical access, refers to the range and quality of food available in shops that people can actually reach, whether by foot, public transport, or, if they have access to one, by car.
Economic access, is about having enough money to buy appropriate food. This depends on how much money a household has, how much it can allocate to food (as opposed to other, mandatory, expenditure such as utilities’ costs, rent and debt repayment), and on the price of food.

Therefore food mapping needs to take into account a number of different factors, for example:

The number and type of food outlets, such as:

Convenience stores
Takeaways
Cafés and Restaurants
Supermarkets
Greengrocers
Bakers
Fishmongers
Butchers

The variety of foods sold within those outlets, for example:

Fruit and vegetables – including fresh, frozen and tinned
Starchy foods – e.g. bread, rice, pasta, both white and wholemeal
Meat, fish and alternatives
Dairy products
Foods that are high in fat, salt and/or sugar
Culturally appropriate foods

Other factors, including:

Price
Quality
Opening times
Transport links
Ease of mobility within the shops

Participatory appraisal uses a range of visual tools such as Venn Diagrams, maps, pie charts, matrices, timelines and role play. It was developed from Participatory Rural Appraisal, which was used as a method of undertaking research in developing countries. PA avoids potential language and literacy problems because it focuses on visual diagrams rather than written data, examples include:

Creating models from whatever material is around to illustrate how people shop and eat.
Making pie charts with pictures, showing what people eat and spend, and when.
Using charts and matrices for brainstorming, establishing people’s likes and dislikes, spending and priorities for their area.

The emphasis of all PA tools is on being interactive, creative and flexible – making it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to have a say.

How to involve the local community?

It is a good idea to involve local residents in food mapping, as they know their areas best and can give an insight into shopping habits that may not be apparent to an outsider. For example, people may choose to use a particular outlet because of the friendliness of the shopkeeper, rather than because it offers the greatest variety of foods. Food mapping can also be used to identify people’s attitudes to different foods and their reasons for choosing the foods they eat.

You can involve local people in a variety of ways:

Hold special consultation events and invite members of the local community.
Work in partnership with organisations that are actively engaged with the local community e.g. Sure Start, schools and residents associations.
Recruit local volunteers to help carry out the mapping, and cover their expenses and childcare costs.

How to present the results of food mapping?

The way results are presented will obviously depend on what methods have been used to carry out your food mapping. However, it also important to take account of your target audience i.e. some types of maps may be easy for policy makers to understand but less easy for members of the local community. It is a good idea to produce colour coded maps with symbols showing different types of food outlets and also some indication of walking distances.

Food Access Radar

The Food Access Radar has been developed by the National Consumer Council (NCC), Staffordshire County Council and Oxfordshire County Council as a tool for identifying areas where people have problems accessing healthy food.

A step-by-step guide has been produced to:

Allow local authorities to map access to food using Geographical Information Systems (GIS), other software and datasets.
Help local authorities and their health partners interpret and use the Food Access Radar’s findings.
Explain what further measures should be taken to investigate food accessibility issues in vulnerable areas.

The Food Access Radar toolkit produced by the NCC can be downloaded from the Other Resources section below.

Examples of food mapping projects

Sustain

Sustain’s Community Mapping Project used participatory appraisal methods to enable local people to analyse their food economies and work with others to develop sustainable solutions to the problems they faced in eating a healthy diet. Their report “Reaching the Parts... Community mapping: Working together to tackle social exclusion and food poverty” illustrates the process and findings of the pilot projects in Brighton, Coventry and Leicester and can be downloaded from their website:

http://www.sustainweb.org/pubslist.php?keyword=reaching

Food mapping in Hackney

City University’s Centre for Food Policy has just undertaken a food mapping study in Hackney, in partnership with Hackney Primary Care Trust, Hackney Council and East London Food Access. The study explored shopping patterns where there were concentrations of food shops. They have produced a report and toolkit about the study, which are both available to download below from the Other Resources section.

You can also visit the following links to find more information about other food mapping studies that have been undertaken in different areas in the UK:

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