Abstract
Many German municipalities are developing retail concepts for retail management and taking stock of the food supply is one of the standard tools. A distance-based indicator is commonly used, which measures the degree of supply based on linear distances between the place of residence and the nearest place of purchase. Beyond this distance, however, access to food is influenced by other spatiophysical and socioeconomic factors. So far, these have hardly been considered. Inadequate access to food is not only problematic from a health perspective, but also because of the social function of food as an important field of social participation. Difficult access to food especially affects people in precarious circumstances, who are already restricted in their participation in society. This article therefore presents a model that theoretically informed, comprehensively and systematically captures the spatiophysical and socioeconomic embedding of food access. Based on selected results of a study that was carried out in Bremen using this approach, this article shows the access barriers that affect residents of two districts that are considered to be well supplied. The primary goal of this article is to raise awareness of the complex issue of food access. Finally, approaches that retail and other municipal initiatives can use to improve access to food are also named.