Ohio losing grocery stores fast – report warns 80% of counties now food deserts

Ohio isn’t doing so well on the grocery store front — and experts warn it’s leaving millions of residents without easy access to food.

In just the past few months, several long-running supermarkets have announced sudden closures. Among them:

• Fishers Foods in Stark County — a 92-year-old local grocer — shut down its final store on October 14, ending nearly a century of service.
• Apples Market in Lorain is closing this month as well according to store signage and its general manager. That doesn’t help a city that already had food deserts.
• Even Ohio-based Kroger, one of the nation’s biggest grocery chains, this summer confirmed plans to close up to 60 stores nationwide in the next 18 months, citing efficiency concerns. It’s unclear how many of those stores, if any, will be in its home state.

These shutdowns come as food access disappears across large portions of the state.
A new 2025 report from the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies (OACAA) found that more than 80% of Ohio counties now have at least one “food desert.” That means entire communities have little or no access to fresh, affordable groceries.

In other words, that’s a whopping 72 of Ohio’s 88 counties!

The report also warns that 68% of counties now face both food and pharmacy shortages — leaving residents with limited access to essentials and health care.

Analysts say inflation, higher labor costs, and growing competition from big-box chains are squeezing smaller stores out of business. Once they’re gone, low-income and rural areas are often left stranded, forced to drive miles for fresh produce or pay more at convenience stores.

The OACAA study links this loss of access to worse health outcomes, higher poverty rates, and shorter lifespans — especially in Ohio’s small towns.

The end of mom-and-pop grocery stores like Fishers Foods and Apples market marks more than the end of a family business or a nostalgic loss for a community — it’s another sign of a statewide problem that’s spreading fast.

Consider this stat: “91% of food deserts are in census tracts where the poverty rate is above the state average.”