§ 59.2. FINDINGS.

1. The City and County of San Francisco has a substantial interest in protecting public health by ensuring that healthy, fresh, sustainable, and affordable food is accessible to all residents of the City, particularly those living in neighborhoods with high rates of obesity, poverty and chronic disease, a high concentration of seniors and families with children, and/or a relative lack of public transit.

2. More than two in five adult San Franciscans are overweight or obese. Over half of San Francisco residents do not eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Nearly one third of San Franciscans eat fast food in a typical week.

3. Sedentary lifestyle and poor diet are risk factors for four of the leading contributors to mortality in San Francisco. Age adjusted death rates for three of these causes – ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and hypertensive heart disease – are among the five causes with the highest death rates for both men and women. One key protective factor for diabetes and cardiovascular disease is a healthy, nutritious diet emphasizing whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables, and the local food environment can have a strong impact on residents' dietary choices, especially if access to healthy food is limited.

4. In certain parts of the City, there is a lack of quality full service neighborhood markets with fresh produce, and an overabundance of corner stores selling alcohol, tobacco, and highly processed foods that are high in salt, fat, and sugar and low in nutrients. In communities that lack supermarkets, families depend on corner stores for food purchases, and the choices at those stores are often limited to packaged food and very little, if any, fresh produce. For example, a 2011 assessment of 19 corner stores in the City's Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood found that only 20% of the stores stocked a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, only 11 % stocked whole grain bread, and only 37% stocked low fat milk.

5. The presence of a large number of stores selling low quality foods in a community can undermine public efforts to promote health and send a message that normalizes the use of unhealthy products in that neighborhood, placing these communities at greater risk for obesity and chronic disease. A high number of convenience stores per capita is associated with higher rates of mortality, diabetes, and obesity. Proximity to convenience stores within a neighborhood is associated with higher rates of obesity and diabetes. The impact of convenience stores on health is even greater in low-income neighborhoods.

6. Research shows that people who live closer to stores that sell healthy food have better diets. Specifically, the amount of shelf space dedicated to fruits and vegetables at neighborhood food stores is positively associated with greater consumption of fruits and vegetables among nearby residents. Food stamp participants who live more than five miles from their primary grocery store consume significantly less fruit than those who live within one mile of a grocery store.

7. Small retailers face a variety of challenges to increasing their offerings of fresh and healthy foods. The retail environment is often saturated with tobacco, alcohol and highly processed food subsidies and products, and advertising for these products. Small retailers also lack access to necessary technical assistance, incentives, training and sourcing systems to stock healthy foods and fresh produce and shift their business plans.

8. Bringing a healthy food retailer into a neighborhood that lacks access to healthy food not only promotes good nutrition, it can provide economic benefits such as supplying living-wage jobs, raising the value of surrounding property, and anchoring and attracting additional businesses to the neighborhood. Small food stores promote foot traffic, which can increase sales for existing surrounding businesses. These sorts of stores also attract new residents to neighborhoods, as food stores are an essential service that people may consider important when deciding where to live.

9. The Southeast Food Access Coalition ("SEFA") has developed a pilot program for sustainable healthy retail in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood that is being implemented with SEFA Food Guardians in the community, is based on lessons learned and best practices in health promotion and prevention, and has influenced healthy retail efforts in other underserved neighborhoods in the City.

10. City agencies including the Department of Public Health and the Economic and Workforce Development Department are undertaking various efforts to increase healthy food retail in underserved parts of the City.

11. While the City has taken important steps forward to promote healthy food retail, there is little coordination of these efforts, and there is a need to centralize and coordinate City-wide strategies to recruit and maintain new healthy food businesses, and ensure that existing food businesses are fully utilizing economic incentives and technical support.

(Added by Ord. , File No. 120966, App. 9/9/2013, Eff. 10/9/2013)