Review: untangling the complex economics of the local food retail environment

The local food retail environment—or the stores, restaurants and other vendors where households acquire the majority of their food—has long been of interest to researchers and policy makers who care about the connections between it and household outcomes like diet, health, and consumer welfare. The local food retail environment, its characteristics and household outcomes are jointly determined by household and firm decisions through complex economic interactions, making it often difficult to parse out causality and important to have clear, shared definitions. This article highlights, reviews, synthesizes, and discusses current research on the complex economic relationships between households and the local food retail environment. We dedicate extra attention to a discussion and review of the economics behind understanding the association between market concentration and food outcomes of interest. Moreover, we discuss the necessity of understanding these relationships for impactful research and improved policy making.