The Rural Food-Away-From-Home Landscape, 1990-2019

Keenan Marchesi, Anne Byrne and Trey Malone ()

No 335420, USDA Miscellaneous from United States Department of Agriculture

Abstract: Approximately half of consumer food expenditures and one-third of food calories consumed are as food-away-from-home (FAFH) purchases. FAFH often differs from food at home (FAH) in nutritional profile and convenience. The availability and variety of FAFH outlets may significantly affect diets, health, food choice, and food-related time use. Focusing on U.S. nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) counties over the course of 30 years from 1990 to 2019, the authors examined the rural FAFH landscape across the United States—i.e., the availability of restaurants, cafeterias, food trucks, and the like outside of the home. The authors focused on trends and differentiating features of FAFH access across the metropolitan divide and across the rural-urban continuum using annual establishment-level data from the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) dataset. The authors found that FAFH is generally less available in nonmetro counties and that there is a prevalence of national chain restaurants among the FAFH options in the most rural, nonmetro counties. However, this finding is not uniform across county types. Broad local economic conditions, captured by primary industry, are correlated with differences in the food landscape. Counties with recreation as their primary industry tended to offer more FAFH options than rural counties with other leading industries, including nonmetro counties. Furthermore, there has been an expansion of FAFH in nonmetro counties, including the most rural, nonmetro counties, led by growth in limited-service restaurants. These results could have implications for food access, overall health, and other consumer food metrics because FAFH generally offers a different nutritional profile than food at home and may provide additional convenience.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban Development; Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Institutional and Behavioral Economics; Public Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44
Date: 2023-03-29
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-mfd
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:usdami:335420

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.335420

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