18. Fast food companies often exploit food deserts
In both urban and rural food deserts, fast food chains and convenience stores offering processed and packaged prepared foods often abound. Both take advantage of the reduced mobility found in food deserts, where a trip to a supermarket is time-consuming and less convenient. The convenience stores often present some of the same items found at supermarkets, but at much higher prices. Food deserts are often found in less-educated communities, where knowledge of adequate nutrition is less commonly found. Food deserts were the creation of both the shift to the suburbs and the shaping of the food distribution chain during the late 20th century.
Several studies by government agencies and universities at the beginning of the 21st century found a disproportionate number of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores in urban areas otherwise designated food deserts by the USDA. A study of demographics in New Orleans found neighborhoods which were predominantly black averaged 2.4 fast-food restaurants per square mile, while those predominantly white averaged 1.5. Studies in other American cities indicated fast-food companies in the 1980s and 1990s deliberately targeted food deserts, where the absence of large supermarkets widens their potential customer base.