Appalachian Store Owners’ and Managers’ Perspectives on the Role of Their Store in the Community and in Providing Healthier Food to the Community

ABSTRACT

Appalachian communities have lower access to healthier food sources like grocery stores. Through semi-structured interviews with owner/managers of convenience stores in Appalachian communities, this qualitative study explored perceived roles and business practices of small food retailers using a grounded theory approach. Five themes emerged including strong relationships between stores and customers, the role of the store in community, food and beverage stocking decisions, store owner/managers’ perceived demand for healthier options, and federal food assistance program participation. The themes provide insight to store owner/manager perspectives on community-focused and business-focused priorities in Appalachian convenience stores and can inform healthy retail interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Appalachia
• healthy food retail
• convenience store
• store owner
• supply chain

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Lindsey Bowman for her contributions to data collection and the store owner/manager participants who contributed their time and expertise to this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [EAS]. The data are not publicly available to protect the privacy of the research participants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Eating Research,Round 10 Grants [number 74134].