The food desert metaphor has been widely used by academics and politicians alike. Whilethere is general agreement on what a food desert is in a relatively vague sense, strategies toidentify food deserts, especially in a rural setting, using a systematic method remainundefined. The purpose of this paper is to contribute towards the development of a method for rural food desert identification strategies using the location of food retailersand residential units. We apply a methodologically innovative GIS approach to theprimarily rural state of Vermont, USA. Areas of inadequate geographic food access areidentified and some are found to overlap with high poverty locations. Aims for future workare identified including fieldwork to validate these findings