DGI Food Access · SB 254 · Cycles 1–5

The Delaware Grocery Initiative has deployed ~$2.15M across five award cycles to fight food deserts. 125,370 Delawareans remain food insecure.

SB 254 (2024) created the Delaware Grocery Initiative to expand healthy-food access in food deserts, with awards administered by the Division of Small Business in partnership with the DE Council on Farm & Food Policy. This dashboard tests DSB Director CJ Bell's claim that "food access is not determined by zip code" — tracking DGI dollars per food-insecure resident at the census-tract level, against both the federal USDA LILA definition and the SB 254 statutory definition as filterable layers.

DGI Dollars Deployed (Cycles 1–4 + 2025)

~$2.15M

39 projects through Cycle 4 (~$1.9M) plus 22 organizations in the July 2025 round (~$250K). Cycle 5 ($700K) pending.

SOURCE · DSB / news.delaware.gov

Cycle 5 (Pending)

$700K

Applications closed 2026-03-20; awardee list expected May 2026. The dashboard ingests Cycle 5 as a pending-disbursement placeholder until DSB publishes.

SOURCE · DSB · NEWS.DELAWARE.GOV · FEB 4 2026

Delawareans Food Insecure

125,370/ 12.6%

Per Map the Meal Gap 2025 (2023 data). Includes 40,620 children (19.7%) — one in five Delaware children.

SOURCE · FEEDING AMERICA · MMG 2025 RELEASE

DGI $ Per Food-Insecure Delawarean

~$17.15

Statewide mean from deployed dollars only. Tract-level distribution is the dashboard's story — the equity test is whether deployment correlates with need.

CALCULATED · $2.15M ÷ 125,370

Food Insecurity by County

MMG 2025 · 2023 data

Sussex County · 13.3% food insecure 32,050

Kent County · est. 14.7% food insecure PLACEHOLDER ~28,000

New Castle County · est. 11.5% food insecure PLACEHOLDER ~65,000

Methodology note: Sussex County figure (32,050 / 13.3%) is the confirmed MMG 2025 county-level value. New Castle and Kent figures shown here are scaffold placeholders pending the bulk ETL pull from the MMG county file; v1.0 deploy refreshes these with confirmed values. Per methodology v0.2.0 (Q2), the working denominator vintage is MMG 2025 (2023 data) with annual refresh in May.

Tract-Level Deployment Map

Renders at v1.0 · MapLibre + GeoJSON

Map renders at v1.0 deploy

Per the ratified stack (architectural review §1): static GeoJSON layers + MapLibre renderer. Both food-desert definitions ship as toggleable layers; DGI grants render as points (or service-area polygons where DSB has documented service areas); food-insecurity tract overlay sits beneath. SD2 (Wilmington) highlighted per redistricting-2022 plan.

USDA LILA tracts SB 254-effective tracts DGI grant points Service-area polygons SNAP retailers MMG food-insecurity heatmap DPH MHC overlay DART transit ACS race / income SD2 boundary (2022)

Disbursement Trajectory

Cycles 1–5 · 2023 → 2026

Dollars awarded by cycle

Cycle 5 shown as pending; bar height reflects allocated funding ($700K) but exact deployment per grantee is unknown until DSB publishes the awardee list.

Cumulative deployed dollars

Sum across cycles. The slope flattens between Cycle 4 (2024) and the 2025 round (smaller pool) and reaccelerates with Cycle 5 once awarded.

What Would Parity Look Like?

Equity-corrected deployment scenarios

Statewide mean

$17.15 per food-insecure resident

Dollars deployed (cumulative)~$2.15M

Food-insecure population (MMG 2025)125,370

Per-tract varianceTBD · v1.0

The statewide mean is the floor of the equity story. The dashboard's real test is whether tract-level deployment correlates with tract-level food insecurity — the analysis that drops in at v1.0.

If Cycle 5 fully deploys

$22.74 per food-insecure resident

Projected cumulative$2.85M

Cycle 5 share$700K / 24.6%

Awardee list expectedMay 2026

Adds Cycle 5's $700K to the cumulative numerator at the statewide mean. Distribution matters more than the mean: the same dollars deployed proportionally to need produce a different dashboard than dollars deployed uniformly.

DSB framing

"Food access is not determined by zip code."

DSB DirectorCJ Bell

TestTract-level $ vs. need

Both definitions shownLILA + SB 254

The hero KPI literally tests this claim. Dual-definition framing (USDA LILA + SB 254-effective) sidesteps the federal-vs-state debate; population-weighted apportionment is the field standard, not a bespoke choice.

Two Definitions of "Food Desert"

USDA LILA × SB 254 cross-walk

USDA LILA (federal)

Low-Income, Low-Access. Census-tract level, USDA Food Access Research Atlas.

Urban access1.0 mi to supermarket

Rural access10 mi to supermarket

Low-incomePoverty ≥20% OR MFI ≤80%

Eligible sourceSupermarket / large grocery

SB 254 (statute)

Title 16 Ch. 36. Statute is unit-agnostic; dashboard interprets at tract level.

Urban access0.5 mi to food resource

Rural access10 mi (same as LILA)

Low-income"Typically lower-income" (qualitative)

Eligible sourcesPantries, corner stores, specialty grocers, +

Cross-walk consequence: in urban Delaware (Wilmington especially), SB 254-effective tracts will generally be a superset of USDA LILA tracts because the 0.5-mi threshold is more restrictive than 1.0-mi. The broader "food resource" denominator partially offsets this — pantries and corner stores count under SB 254 but not under USDA LILA. In rural Sussex, the two definitions converge at the 10-mi threshold. The dashboard ships both as filterable layers; methodology v0.2.0 §Q6 specifies the precise tract-level rule.

On the Record

Sponsors, administrators, advocates

Food access is not determined by zip code.

CJ Bell, Director · Delaware Division of Small Business · DGI Cycle 5 announcement

The Delaware Grocery Initiative was created to make sure that no Delawarean has to drive past their neighborhood to find healthy food.

Sen. Darius Brown (D-Wilmington) · SB 254 sponsor

Awarded funds may be used to support operations, capital expenses, equipment purchases, and other projects that expand supply chain capacity and strengthen collaboration among community partners.

DSB · DGI program description · news.delaware.gov · Feb 4, 2026

In Delaware, 125,370 individuals are food insecure (12.6%). 40,620 are children (19.7%).

Feeding America · Map the Meal Gap 2025 · 2023 data

Methodology & Sources

Public, citable

Source	Used For	Verified
DSB · Delaware Grocery Initiative business.delaware.gov · news.delaware.gov	Cycle 1–4 grantee list, 2025 round (22 awardees, $250K), Cycle 5 application timeline ($700K)	2026.05.11
Map the Meal Gap 2025 feedingamerica.org · 2023 data	Food-insecurity denominator (state and county); 2-year structural lag	2026.05.11
Senate Bill 254 (Title 16, Ch. 36) legis.delaware.gov · delcode.delaware.gov	SB 254 statutory food-desert definition, "food resource" / "specialty grocer" terms	2026.05.11
USDA Food Access Research Atlas ers.usda.gov	LILA tract layer (1.0 mi urban / 10 mi rural; poverty / MFI low-income criterion)	2026.05.11
USDA SNAP Retailer Locator usda.gov	SNAP-retailer point layer; cross-referenced with DE Dept of Agriculture & DE Council on Farm & Food Policy	2026.05.11
U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder geocoding.geo.census.gov	Primary geocoder for grantee storefronts; returns 2020 tract directly	2026.05.11
DPH My Healthy Community myhealthycommunity.dhss.delaware.gov	Tract-level food insecurity, diabetes, obesity overlays (DPH MHC)	2026.05.11
Delaware Open Data Portal data.delaware.gov	Food Bank of Delaware Meal Gaps (cross-validation against MMG)	2026.05.11
FirstMap firstmap.delaware.gov · 2022 redistricting plan	SD2 boundary (Wilmington), county boundaries, base map	2026.05.11
ACS 5-year estimates census.gov · block-group + tract	Population weighting layer for areal interpolation; race / income overlay	2026.05.11

Calculation notes: Statewide mean ($17.15 per food-insecure resident) = $2.15M deployed ÷ 125,370 food-insecure individuals. County-level food insecurity figures: Sussex (32,050 / 13.3%) is confirmed from MMG 2025; New Castle and Kent are scaffold placeholders pending the bulk ETL pull. Tract-level distribution requires population-weighted areal interpolation (methodology v0.2.0 §Q3) using ACS block-group population as the weighting layer. Both USDA LILA and SB 254-effective tract layers ship; the 50% population threshold for SB 254-effective is tunable in the bulk-data ETL. Full methodology in /methodology/dgi-food-access-kpi-definitions.md.