NM Food Pathways Intelligence HubNew Mexico Food Pathways Intelligence Hub
An interactive map showing where New Mexicans may have a harder time reaching healthy, affordable food — down to the neighborhood level — across all 33 counties, with ideas for what might help. Look up your own address, browse the statewide map, or compare counties side by side. This is a planning-level screening tool meant to start a conversation, not make a final decision.
Statewide Health at a Glance
Food Deserts & Nutrition Deserts
Two different problems, both tracked here: a food desert means it's physically hard to reach any store. A nutrition desert means there's no full grocery store or supermarket nearby — at best a farmers market, meat market, or other specialty market (real food, but seasonal, part-time, or limited in what it stocks), and at worst only convenience stores, dollar stores, gas stations, or similar — based on actual retailer types and names, not an estimated score.
Nutrition Desert — By Tier
Food Desert — By Distance to Nearest Store
What Kind of Help Is Needed
A rough, computer-generated guess at what kind of help each neighborhood may need most, based on distance to stores, poverty, and other factors. See About This Tool for how this is calculated.
SNAP Enrollment Gap — Are Eligible People Getting Help?
Compares each tract's poverty rate (Census ACS, person-level) to its share of households receiving SNAP (Census ACS, household-level). A large gap can mean eligible residents aren't enrolled — though the two measures use different units (people vs. households), so treat this as a planning-level signal to validate locally, not a precise enrollment shortfall.
Resource Coverage — Is There Enough Nearby to Help?
SNAP retailers and food access resources near each tract, relative to population. Senior centers are tracked separately as context, not counted here — see About This Tool for why.
Resources Already on the Ground
Statewide counts of existing food-access infrastructure that remediation efforts can build on.
Planning-level disclaimer
Food Pathways is a planning-level screening tool. Results are intended to identify areas for deeper review and local validation. Scores and recommendations do not represent final site selection, funding approval, zoning review, parcel feasibility, operator commitment, or service availability.Find My Address
Type in a street address to see how your neighborhood scores, and what might help. For browsing the full map or comparing counties, use the Map or By County tabs.
Location Caveat
SNAP retailer, store, food access resource, and senior center information should be validated for current operating status, eligibility, hours, services, and capacity before decisions are made. Tract-level scores are planning-level estimates, not a final determination for any specific address.Statewide Map
Every neighborhood in New Mexico, colored by how urgently it may need help. Areas shown in gray with a dashed outline don't have enough data yet — that means "needs a closer look," not "doing fine."
Geography
Food Access
Nutrition Desert
Data Coverage
Type of Help Needed All / None
Point Overlays
Legend
Tract Detail
By County
Compare all 33 New Mexico counties side by side, or pick one to see its neighborhoods, nearby food resources, and priority levels in detail.
County Comparison Table
Click any column header to sort. Click a row to switch the whole app to that county.
Filter Counties Shown All / None
Nearby Resources
SNAP retailers, grocery and food stores, food pantries and other food help, and senior centers across New Mexico. Turn layers on or off, and click any point on the map for details.
Support Type Clear
Asset Counts
Data Quality
How complete and current is the data behind this tool? This page shows statewide coverage at the neighborhood (census-tract) level, plus a plain-language quality rating for each underlying data source.
Statewide Coverage Snapshot
Model Coverage by County
Data Quality Index
Each source below is rated High, Medium, or Needs Improvement based on three factors: how much of the state it covers, how recently it was reviewed or refreshed, and any known limitations. Hover or tap the info icon on each card for the details behind that rating.
About This Tool
Why NM Food Pathways
Growing up, I didn't know what a food desert was. I just knew what it felt like.
I remember being on food assistance. I remember not having a car. I remember wondering how we were going to get groceries. I remember accepting that some food was better than no food, and sometimes choosing to stay hungry because there weren't many options.
Years later, my time with the State of New Mexico gave me something I never had as a kid: perspective.
I saw how valuable data existed across agencies, but too often it lived in silos. Housing, transportation, health, demographics, and food access all told part of the story. I realized the opportunity wasn't another dashboard. It was connecting those stories so we could better understand the challenges facing our communities.
When I left state government, I couldn't walk away from that idea.
I built NM Food Pathways because I understood both the problem and the opportunity. This isn't just about maps or data. It's about giving communities better tools to make informed decisions before challenges become crises.
This is only the beginning.
If you're a nonprofit, government agency, researcher, healthcare organization, retailer, or community leader, I'd love to partner with you. Bring your data. Bring your challenges. Bring your ideas.
Together, let's build a better understanding of food and nutrition access in New Mexico and turn that understanding into action. The best solutions won't come from one organization. They'll come from all of us working together.
— Wesley Espinoza, Founder, NM Food Pathways · Get in touch
What this tool is
This is a planning-level screening tool built on statewide census tract boundaries, a food access model, and location data for SNAP retailers, food retail stores, and (in pilot areas) food access resources and senior centers. It is designed to move users from "where is the problem?" to "what kind of problem is it?" to "what intervention may help?" to "who needs to validate or act next?" It is a starting point for conversation, local validation, and due diligence — it does not prescribe policy, select final sites, or replace local planning judgment.
Food desert vs. nutrition desert
A food desert / food access gap reflects geographic or practical barriers to reaching a store at all — nearest store distance, stores within 1/5/10 miles, stores per 1,000 residents, and SNAP retailer availability. A nutrition desert reflects healthy food access pressure that can exist even when a store is nearby, since household budgets are also shaped by food prices, transportation, housing, and utility costs. A tract can have stores nearby and still have nutrition access concerns; a tract can lack stores but need mobile or food-support intervention before grocery recruitment; and a tract can simply have insufficient model coverage and need validation before any interpretation at all.
Store and centroid distance limitation
Distance metrics are calculated from tract centroids, which is a planning-level approximation, not a parcel-level or road-network distance calculation. Large or irregularly shaped tracts may have real distances that differ meaningfully from the centroid estimate.
Methodology & Formulas
Every formula below is read directly from the live scoring views — this section is a reference for exactly how each score, tier, and category is calculated today, not a simplified summary. If you're proposing a change to how something is weighted or classified, this is the starting point.
Public Priority Score & Tier
The tract-level "classic" food desert model. One weighted score per tract, built from five inputs:
priority_score =
(nutrition_desert_score × 0.50)
+ (MIN(nearest_store_miles, 20) × 2.00)
+ (10 points if no store within 1 mile, else 0)
+ (10 points if no store within 5 miles, else 0)
+ (10 points if poverty rate ≥ 30%, else 0)
| Tier | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 — Highest Priority | score ≥ 75 |
| Tier 2 — High Priority | score ≥ 55 |
| Tier 3 — Moderate Priority | score ≥ 35 |
| Tier 4 — Lower Relative Priority | everything else |
nutrition_desert_score term above is the
older, tercile-based score — it is a different field from the real, store-type-based Nutrition
Access Tier described next. The new tier is not yet feeding into this priority score.Nutrition Access Tier
Rebuilt this cycle to reflect what kind of food retailer is actually near a tract, not an abstract score. Every SNAP-authorized retailer physically located in a tract is classified into one of three tiers by its real store type and, for ambiguous names, by name-pattern review:
| Tier | What counts | Tract qualifies as… |
|---|---|---|
| Full grocery (weight 1.0) | Supermarket, Super Store, genuine Grocery Store (excludes meat-market/carnicería-named stores even if USDA labels them "Grocery Store") | Stable if count > 0 |
| Market (weight 0.5) | Farmers and Markets (seasonal), meat markets/carnicerías/butchers, specialty/ethnic markets | At Risk if no full grocery, but count > 0 |
| Minimal (weight 0.25) | Convenience stores, dollar stores, drug stores, gas stations, smoke shops | Critical if this is all that's nearby, or nothing at all |
A supplemental continuous score,
nutrition_access_weighted_score, sums (full-grocery count × 1.0 + market count × 0.5 +
minimal count × 0.25) per 1,000 residents — useful for comparing tracts within the same tier, not a
replacement for it. Second-source store data (from OpenStreetMap) is de-duplicated against SNAP retailer
records within 150 meters before counting, to avoid the same physical store being counted twice.
SNAP Enrollment Gap
snap_gap = household_poverty_rate − pct_households_snap
Both sides are household-level (Census ACS table B17017 for poverty, table B22010 for SNAP receipt) so they're directly comparable — an earlier version of this metric mixed person-level poverty with household-level SNAP data, which overstated the gap. A gap of 10+ points is flagged as notable. This is a planning-level signal for local follow-up, not a precise enrollment shortfall.
Remediation Pathway (what kind of help is needed)
Computed client-side from tract-level fields, checked in this exact order — the first matching rule wins:
| # | Category | Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Data Validation Needed | Tract lacks statewide model data, or data coverage status is insufficient / partial / none |
| 2 | Grocery / Retail Feasibility Review | Public priority score ≥ 60, and no store within 1 or 5 miles, and poverty rate ≥ 20% |
| 3 | Mobile Market / Mobile Pantry | Nearest store ≥ 10 miles or no store within 5 miles, and fewer than 0.3 stores per 1,000 residents |
| 4 | Nutrition Quality & Affordability Intervention | Nutrition Access Tier is Critical or At Risk |
| 5 | SNAP Retailer Expansion / Validation | Poverty rate ≥ 20% (and none of the above matched) |
| 6 | Monitor / Lower Relative Priority | None of the above — default |
Food Access Risk Category
A plain-language label, checked in order: nutrition-desert-score based severity first, then distance (10+ miles, then 5+ miles), then "no store within 1 mile" as a Nearby Store Access Gap, else Lower Relative Food Access Risk.
Required Caveats
Global Caveat
Food Pathways is a planning-level screening tool. Results are intended to identify areas for deeper review and local validation. Scores and recommendations do not represent final site selection, funding approval, zoning review, parcel feasibility, operator commitment, or service availability.Data Coverage Caveat
Some tracts are included in the statewide boundary layer but do not currently have enough model coverage for reliable scoring. These areas are flagged for additional validation and should not be interpreted as low need.Location Caveat
SNAP retailer, store, food access resource, and senior center information should be validated for current operating status, eligibility, hours, services, and capacity before decisions are made.Pilot-Enriched Layer Caveat
Food access resources and senior center support layers are currently enriched for Doña Ana County / Las Cruces and are not yet complete statewide support infrastructure layers.Decision-Making Caveat
The platform identifies candidate tracts and planning-level signals. It does not identify final parcels, make funding decisions, prescribe policy, or replace community engagement, operator feasibility review, transportation analysis, zoning review, or local validation.Remediation pathways referenced in this tool
Tract detail pages surface a suggested remediation focus based on planning-level signals (priority score, distance to nearest store, poverty rate, nutrition desert score, and data coverage status). These map to six general pathways: grocery / retail feasibility review; mobile market or mobile pantry; SNAP retailer expansion or validation; nutrition quality and affordability intervention; senior food support; and, where coverage is incomplete, data validation before any other conclusion. These are directional starting points for conversation, not prescriptions — they require parcel review, zoning review, operator engagement, community engagement, transportation review, and field verification before any site or program decision.
AI-assisted workflow disclosure
Portions of this platform's data pipeline, scoring logic, and interface were developed with AI-assisted tooling. AI-assisted development can introduce errors, omissions, or unintended bias that are not always obvious on review. All scores, maps, counts, categories, and suggestions produced by this tool are planning-level estimates only and may contain mistakes. Users must independently verify all information against authoritative sources and their own local knowledge before relying on it for any policy, funding, zoning, program, or site-selection decision.
Ownership & legal disclaimer
© 2026 InnovaOps LLC. All rights reserved. The New Mexico Food Pathways Intelligence Hub — including its software, design, data models, and scoring methodology — is the property of InnovaOps LLC and is provided for informational and planning purposes only. It is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose. InnovaOps LLC is not liable for any decisions made, actions taken, or damages incurred based on use of this tool. Use of this site constitutes acknowledgment of these terms.
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