Understanding Food Access in Milwaukee

MKE Grocery Buddy formed to meet immediate needs during SNAP delays, but the work quickly revealed deeper gaps in Milwaukee’s food support systems. Here you can learn more about our city’s food access landscape, why direct mutual aid matters, and what food insecurity really looks like here.

Why We Say Food Apartheid Instead of Food Desert

  • Not a lack of food: Communities often have food, but it’s usually cheap, processed, and unhealthy—not fresh and nutritious.

  • “Desert” implies emptiness: The word suggests these areas are barren, ignoring the vibrancy, life, and potential of these neighborhoods.

  • Highlights systemic inequity: “Food apartheid” points to the role of race, class, and geography in creating unequal access to healthy food.

  • Exposes discriminatory policies: Access to fresh, healthy food is often abundant in wealthy areas but limited in poor neighborhoods, a result of decades of inequitable planning and policy.

  • Calls for action: The term asks us to recognize social inequities and actively work to address them.

Works Cited:

  • Hunger Task Force. FoodShare Resources. Hunger Task Force, 2025. Hunger Task Force

  • City of Milwaukee. FEED MKE Project. City of Milwaukee, “The Data is Clear,” 2025. City of Milwaukee+1

  • Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. “New Map the Meal Gap Data Shows Food Insecurity Worsening Across Eastern Wisconsin,” May 2025. Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin

  • Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. “High Grocery Prices, Government Cutbacks Drive Food Pantry Demand.” Feeding America, 2025. Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin

  • Marquette University, Iggy’s Market. “Hunger in Milwaukee.” Marquette University. Marquette University

  • MKE Elevate. Nutrition and Physical Activity Issue Brief. City of Milwaukee, Feb. 2023. City of Milwaukee

  • Wisconsin Policy Forum. Focus: FoodShare in Milwaukee County. June 2024. wispolicyforum.org

  • Children’s Wisconsin. Milwaukee Assessment: Community Health Needs, 2022. Children's Wisconsin

  • Stacker. “Food Insecurity Rates in Milwaukee County, WI.” Stacker, July 13, 2023.