New Study Shows the State Needs More Grocery Stores

While major food retailers announced a big push in 2011 to open or expand grocery or convenience stores in and around neighborhoods with no supermarkets, just one of the six new supermarkets in West Virginia landed in areas that most need access to fresh food, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal food stamp data. In many areas of West Virginia, food pantries are stepping in to resolve “the crisis of disappearing grocery stores,” according to West Virginia University’s WV FOODLINK project.