TOLEDO, Ohio —
Toledo City Council is taking different approaches to tackle food insecurity in the area.
Through a new position and a potential study, the goal is to assess what resources the city has and where the gaps are.
Downtown Toledo has plenty of activities and restaurants, but when it comes to grocery stores, the options are limited.
To try and get to a full-size grocery store may pose a challenge for some community members.
"Transportation is the biggest issue because you would have to travel either by car or public transportation to get to that full-scale grocery store," Toledo city councilmember Brittany Jones said.
Finding more ways to bring more options to downtown is not a new topic of conversation, but the city is hiring a food policy manager to try and keep things moving forward.
The food policy manager will conduct a food environment audit, looking at what the city currently has.
"They're also tasked with creating a food policy commission," Jones said. "So this will be made up of food leaders of community leaders, partners in all sectors of food."
The commission will be filled with people from farm to plate to look at how the community can improve food, how it's processed and how it's consumed.
City council is hoping to get a study done to analyze food deserts in the area and find ways to incentivize stores to have healthy options.
Jones said one of the reasons for the study was the recent closures of Rite Aids. She said the study would look at what the community can do with those spaces.
"It could be used for potential funding because there is funding out there to address these sort of issues, but then also encourage the entrepreneurship," Jones said. "Hopefully it'll be a community-owned grocery store to go into one of these Rite Aids that are currently vacant as well. So the possibilities are endless."
She said a community-owned grocery store is one of the biggest opportunities the city has.
"Adding value to that neighborhood in general because that's economic development," Jones said. "If you're hiring people that live in the neighborhood to work there, you're adding to their household income, you're adding to their financial wellbeing."
The study is a measure on the agenda for city council's meeting next week.
Jones said there are five potential candidates that they are narrowing down between for the food policy manager.
She said there were initially over 40 applicants, ranging from food truck owners to people who work within the city. The salary for this position will range between $75,000 and $106,000.
Jones said there should be an announcement by the end of the year for who will fill the position.