WANDA Joins the Grocery Retail for All Summit

Why the Future of Nutrition Security Depends on the Economic Health of Community Grocery

As conversations about food insecurity continue to dominate headlines, one critical question is often overlooked: Who will keep the grocery store open?

For decades, nutrition experts, advocates, and policymakers have focused on helping individuals make healthier choices. Yet the ability to make those choices depends on something much more fundamental: whether communities have reliable access to grocery stores that can survive economically.

This June, as WANDA (Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics, and Agriculture) celebrates its tenth anniversary during WANDA Week 2026, the organization is proud to partner with the Grocery Retail for All Summit: Scaling What Works in Underserved, Low-Income, Rural and Urban Communities, taking place on Thursday, June 18, 2026, at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).

The Summit arrives at a pivotal moment for the nation. Independent grocers serving neighborhoods with limited food access face mounting pressures that threaten not only their businesses but also the health and economic vitality of the communities they serve. The conversation is no longer simply about food access. It is about the interconnected realities of nutrition security, economic security, and community resilience.

Nutrition Security Begins with Retail Stability

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that nearly 47 million Americans experienced food insecurity in 2023, including approximately 14 million children. While urban food deserts have received substantial attention, another trend has emerged: rural communities are increasingly losing their grocery stores as Main Streets struggle to survive.

The closure of a community grocery store has cascading consequences. Residents travel farther to purchase necessities. Older adults and families without reliable transportation lose convenient access to healthy foods. Local jobs disappear. Neighborhood investment declines. Health disparities widen. Grocery stores, therefore, function as much more than retail businesses. They are anchors of community infrastructure. Yet keeping those anchors in place has become increasingly difficult.

The Business Reality Behind Food Access

National conversations about grocery sustainability frequently focus on theft. Media coverage often frames shrink, the industry term used to describe losses, as a consequence of organized retail crime. However, operational realities tell a far more nuanced story.

The daily challenges facing independent grocers often have less to do with criminal activity and more to do with ordinary business complexities. Products expire before they can be sold. Weather affects customer traffic. Milk demand fluctuates unexpectedly. Staff turnover creates training gaps. Cashiers accidentally ring up incorrect items. Forecasting proves imperfect.

Customers maintain longstanding shopping habits that are difficult to change. A critical concern for some retailers is spoilage and operational inefficiencies frequently pose a greater threat to profitability than intentional theft. For retailers operating on razor-thin margins, these seemingly minor disruptions accumulate quickly. The result is a persistent tension between reducing waste and maintaining abundance.

Why Empty Shelves Create Their Own Risk

One of the most compelling lessons emerging challenges traditional assumptions about efficiency. Conventional wisdom suggests that minimizing inventory reduces losses. If retailers order fewer products, they theoretically throw away less food. However, community grocers know the reality is more complicated. Understocking creates its own form of loss.

Customers who repeatedly encounter empty shelves often return to familiar shopping routines elsewhere. Families seeking reliability may travel farther distances rather than risk an incomplete shopping trip. Once trust is lost, rebuilding it becomes difficult.

Sometimes maintaining customer confidence requires accepting a degree of imperfection.

As one retailer described it, success may depend less on selling every item purchased and more on ensuring there is enough inventory to meet demand when customers walk through the door.

Selling eight out of ten products can be healthier for the business than perfectly selling six out of six. In this context, shrink becomes not merely a cost to eliminate but a reality to manage strategically.

Access Alone Does Not Change Behavior

Opening a grocery store in a historically underserved community does not automatically alter consumer behavior. Shopping patterns are deeply ingrained. Families develop routines around transportation availability, work schedules, childcare responsibilities, benefit distribution cycles, and years of navigating limited options. Even when healthier or more convenient alternatives become available, habits persist. Changing those habits requires sustained engagement.

Community outreach. Visible promotions. Neighborhood events. Social media presence.

Newsletters. Sampling programs. Word-of-mouth trust. Independent grocers often find themselves wearing multiple hats simultaneously: retailer, marketer, community organizer, educator, and employer. Building traffic becomes just as important as managing inventory.

Without sufficient customers coming through the doors, even the most thoughtfully designed store struggles to survive.

Shrink Is a Revenue Problem

Shrink is fundamentally a revenue challenge. The instinct to focus exclusively on reducing losses can inadvertently distract from the larger objective of increasing sales. More customers. Larger basket sizes. Higher transaction volume. Stronger customer loyalty.

These factors ultimately determine whether a retailer thrives. Short-term interventions to reduce losses matter. However, long-term viability depends upon creating enough demand to sustain the enterprise. The goal is not simply to eliminate shrink. The goal is to grow the business. Because profitable stores remain open. Open stores preserve access. And preserved access improves the conditions necessary for nutrition security.

Technology as an Enabler, Not a Cure

Technology innovation offers promising opportunities to support retailers navigating these challenges. Artificial intelligence, computer vision, predictive analytics, and inventory management tools increasingly provide insights that were previously unavailable.

Importantly, these technologies are reshaping the conversation from "loss prevention" to "loss recovery."

Many operational errors stem not from malicious intent but from ordinary human mistakes. Employees receive varying levels of training. Customers navigating self-checkout systems make unintentional errors. Real-time feedback mechanisms can help correct these mistakes before losses occur.

Yet an important cautionary note arose. Technology alone cannot solve structural challenges. Independent operators often lack the time, staffing capacity, and financial flexibility necessary to implement entirely new systems. Even affordable innovations require onboarding, training, workflow adjustments, and ongoing management. For solutions to succeed, they must acknowledge the realities of small business operations. Technology must adapt to the retailer, not the other way around.

Expertise Is Infrastructure

Another recurring theme involved the value of operational expertise. Many community grocers enter the field because they are passionate about improving food access and addressing inequities. Mission-driven leadership is essential. However, today's grocery environment differs dramatically from previous generations. Independent operators compete against large national chains, online retailers, changing consumer preferences, and decades of industry consolidation. Good intentions alone cannot overcome structural barriers.

Retail expertise, mentorship, peer learning, and technical assistance are equally important forms of infrastructure. Communities need entrepreneurs who understand both mission and margins. Public health and profitability cannot exist in separate conversations.

From Food Access to Food Dignity

For WANDA Founder and CEO Tambra Raye Stevenson, these insights reinforce the importance of expanding how we define food justice.

"At WANDA, we believe grocery stores are more than places to purchase food—they are gateways to health, culture, belonging, and economic opportunity. We are honored to join the Grocery Retail for All Summit as a partner and contribute the voices and experiences of the women, families, farmers, entrepreneurs, and communities we serve.

As we celebrate WANDA Week and our 10th anniversary, this partnership represents an opportunity to move beyond conversations about food access and toward food dignity, food democracy, and nutrition security. Together, we can reimagine retail as a force for community wellbeing and ensure that healthier choices are accessible, affordable, and relevant to every neighborhood."

Food dignity recognizes that communities deserve more than the presence of food.

They deserve choice. Reliability. Cultural relevance. Ownership. Building the Grocery Systems Communities Deserve

Ertharin Cousin, Founder and CEO of Food Systems for the Future Institute, underscored the importance of investing in leaders closest to the communities they serve.

"Transforming food systems requires listening to and investing in the leaders closest to the communities we seek to serve. Together, we can elevate solutions that ensure every family—regardless of zip code, income, or background—has access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally meaningful foods."

Her observation points to an essential truth. The future of nutrition security cannot be designed solely in conference rooms. It must be informed by operators balancing invoices and payroll, community leaders rebuilding trust, technologists developing accessible tools, researchers generating evidence, and families navigating everyday realities.

Looking Ahead

As WANDA enters its second decade, the Grocery Retail for All Summit offers an opportunity to advance a more complete vision of food systems transformation.

One that acknowledges that healthy communities require healthy businesses.

One that recognizes that preserving access means preserving the institutions that provide it.

One that understands that justice and sustainability depend upon economic viability.

Because protecting margins and preserving access are not competing priorities.

They are mutually reinforcing investments in community wellbeing.

Join Us in Chicago

Grocery Retail for All Summit: Scaling What Works in Underserved, Low-Income, Rural and Urban Communities

Thursday, June 18, 2026 | University of Illinois Chicago | Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum 725 W. Roosevelt Road | Chicago, Illinois

Registration information is available through the Grocery Retail for All Summit organizers.

As part of WANDA Week 2026, we invite retailers, public health professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, students, investors, and community advocates to join this timely conversation about what it truly takes to nourish communities. Because the future of nutrition security depends not only on what people choose to eat, but on whether communities can sustain the businesses that make those choices possible.