Amid fast food price hike, what are affordable alternatives in LA’s food deserts?

As some fast food restaurants already begin to raise prices to make up for the increase of the minimum wage for workers, Los Angeles residents who live in so-called food deserts now have fewer options for affordable meals.

In the West Adams neighborhood near Crenshaw Boulevard and 28th Street, people said it’s less time-consuming to pop by at fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Yoshinoya and Taco Bell locations instead of going grocery shopping at a Smart & Final a couple of blocks away.

“It’s convenient for me to come to this [Taco Bell] or the McDonald’s,” Jose Castillo, who lives in South LA, said. “Sometimes you feel tired, and you just go buy your burger.”

But with the possibility of fast food prices going up, frequent guests to the fast food eateries now have to think about how they will feed themselves and their family.

“It’s economical since I don’t have a lot of income,” Janet Contreras said in Spanish, echoing others South LA residents’ concerns that affordable food options are dwindling.

Other than the Smart & Final location on Crenshaw Boulevard, there is no other grocery store within 1-mile radius.

Consumers like Castillo and Contreras said they are not sure what kind of affordable meal alternatives they may have, and they may have to start considering cutting back on how often they eat out. 

“If pay is going up, that’s great. And folks are earning more, and lifting them potentially out of food insecurity and helping them with their lives,” Kayla de La Haye, the director of the USC Institute for Food System Equity, said. “But at the same time, we should be making food accessible and affordable, especially healthy food.”

Workers at the Taco Bell location in West Adams confirmed to NBC Los Angeles that their menu items are set to go up in the near future.

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