“Not only have salad businesses like Sweetgreen been hurt by the collapse of the office economy, but also, in this time of acute stress, salads — especially a takeout salad — just don’t hold the same appeal,” writes Moe Tkacik, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, in her article, “The Death of the $15 Salad.”
Tkacik’s article on how eating habits have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic was making its rounds on Twitter this week. While the piece does provide some interesting insight to food industry sales — back in 2008, Domino’s was a $3 stock and it is now close to a $400 stock, and Sweetgreen sales fell about 60% during the eight weeks after the first shutdowns — the article fails to mention any aspect of food accessibility and security amid the pandemic.
A study conducted by Northwestern University found that the pandemic has doubled the number of people facing food insecurity and has disproportionately affected marginalized communities. According to the United States Census Bureau’s Census Household Pulse Survey, from April 23 to May 19, 36% of Black Americans and 32% of Hispanic Americans faced food insecurity. This is in comparison to white Americans, 18% of which faced food insecurity.
This increase in food insecurity has resulted in more Americans depending on government programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. The use of SNAP increased by 17% from February to May. This means that approximately six million Americans received food stamps for the first time during the first three months of the pandemic, according to The New York Times.
People of color are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 due to systemic health and social inequities, namely access to healthy food. There is no denying that fast food establishments in poor neighborhoods primarily made of people of color contribute to adverse health risks, including diabetes. Higher income and white neighborhoods tend to have more supermarkets, which offer healthier foods than convenience stores. Often, due to accessibility and the mere economical aspect, people of color and those with a lower income will choose an option like a pizza over a $15 salad. As Sarah Todd, a reporter at Quartz, writes:
“The archetypical Sweetgreen customer is a young, well-educated, urban professional, the kind of person who can not only afford to spring for a $14 salad with steelhead trout and summer squash, but also wants to know that it’s been ethically sourced; the kind of person who would work in a strategy or marketing role at Sweetgreen if they didn’t already have another job as an architect, a software engineer, a consultant, or a novelist; the kind of person who would start Sweetgreen, or at least think about starting Sweetgreen, if it didn’t already exist.”
Sweetgreen’s customer base was never meant to be inclusive. Interestingly enough, Tkacik attributes the death of the $15 salad to the mass shift to remote work amid the pandemic, writing, “Nearly all the chains are heavily reliant on capturing the office-worker lunch rush, so much so that Sweetgreen has an entire arm of its business devoted to delivering salads in bulk to offices free of charge.” Still, corporate America is predominately white, which only furthers this exclusivity of these healthy meals.
Simply characterizing the downfall of restaurants like Sweetgreen to a matter of comfortability and the appeal of a pizza versus a salad is irresponsible and presents the situation in a vacuum. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the inequalities that have been present for people of color, and it is critical to acknowledge that they have always been there.
We should not be mourning the death of the $15 salad. We should be celebrating the fact that it is losing its value in society, and then we should be working to make sure that another overpriced and privileged healthy food option does not take its place.
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