Are grocery stores easily accessible?

– Accessibility of grocery stores in the regions of Turku, Lahti and Mikkeli during the years 1995–2003

Abstract

This study focuses on the physical accessibility of grocery stores and the changes in the accessibility within the built-up areas in the urban regions of Turku, Lahti and Mikkeli during the years 1995–2003. The study endeavours to find out to what extent grocery retailing services are accessible on foot within built-up areas. In addition to this, the study focuses on the availability, and the possible changes in the availability, of grocery retailing services in areas with numerous pensioner households, adult households and households with children. This is the first time that such a survey has been made in Finland, where the accessibility of grocery stores in built-up areas has been studied from the point of view of the different household types. This study is based on the unit-specific data in the directory of grocery shops of A.C. Nielsen Finland Ltd, which can be found in the geographical information system of the NCRC (National Consumer Research Centre), as well as on the socio-demographic data from the studied area gathered in the grid database of Statistics Finland.

In all the urban regions within the study, the grocery retailing network of built-up areas has thinned out, and the services have been centred around increasingly condensed areas in city centres and other large built-up areas such as municipality centres. Increasingly few inhabitants can access a grocery store on foot. In 1995, approximately 39–44 % of the inhabitants of the built-up areas included in this study lived within 500 metres of a grocery store. In the year 2003, the corresponding figure had gone down to only 31–39 %. When expanding the scope of study to those who live within 1 km of a grocery store, the development has been similar. The size of the built-up area affects the accessibility of grocery retailing services, i.e. the smaller the built-up area is, the more likely it will lack grocery retailing services.

Pensioner and adult households tend to end up in residential areas where grocery retailing services are within walking distance. Of the pensioner households in built-up areas, 48–59 % lived not more than 500 metres from a grocery store in 1995. By the year 2003, the figure had shrunk by almost 10 percentage units, but still, out of the different household types in the study, the number of pensioner households within walking distance of a shop was the largest. In 2003, approximately half of the pensioner households in the built-up areas of Turku and Mikkeli regions lived no more than 500 m from a grocery store, and the corresponding figure in the Lahti region was 41.6 %. At the end of the 1990’s the number of adult households in built-up areas within walking distance of a shop decreased, only to go up again in all the studied areas during the years 1999–2003. Half of the adult households in the Turku region, 41.4 % in the Mikkeli region, and 38.2 % in the Lahti region lived no more than 500 m from a grocery store in 2003. Households with children are usually concentrated in areas of single-family houses which are located on the outskirts of built-up areas where grocery retailing services are normally scarce. While in 1995, one third of the households with children in the built-up areas included in this study lived not more than 500 m from a grocery store, by the year 2003 this figure had gone down to 29.1 % in the Turku region, 28.2 % in the Mikkeli region, and 24.8 % in the Lahti region.

As the population of Finland is ageing and the number of small households is increasing, more attention should be paid to the accessibility on foot of grocery retailing services. A well organised community structure will provide the consumers with a wide range of options for running their daily errands.

Katri Koistinen, Jenni Väliniemi. Are grocery stores easily accessible? – Accessibility of grocery stores in the regions of Turku, Lahti and Mikkeli during the years 1995–2003. Publications 4/2007.

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