  Access to food assistance programs such as food pantries and food banks needs
focus in order to mitigate food insecurity. Accessibility to the food
assistance programs is impacted by demographics of the population and geography
of the location. It hence becomes imperative to define and identify food
assistance deserts (Under-served areas) within a given region to find out the
ways to improve the accessibility of food. Food banks, the supplier of food to
the food agencies serving the people, can manage its resources more efficiently
by targeting the food assistance deserts and increase the food supply in those
regions. This paper will examine the characteristics and structure of the food
assistance network in the region of Ohio by presenting the possible reasons of
food insecurity in this region and identify areas wherein food agencies are
needed or may not be needed. Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) clustering technique
is employed to identify the possible reasons and address this problem of food
accessibility.
