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Objective: To examine where residents in an area with limited access to healthy foods (an urban food desert) purchased healthier and less healthy foods.

Design: Food shopping receipts were collected over a one-week period in 2013. These were analysed to describe where residents shopped for food and what types of food they bought.

Setting: Two low-income, predominantly African-American neighbourhoods with limited access to healthy foods in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Subjects: Two hundred and ninety-three households in which the primary food shoppers were predominantly female (77.8%) and non-Hispanic black (91.1%) adults.

Results: Full-service supermarkets were by far the most common food retail outlet from which food receipts were returned and accounted for a much larger proportion (57.4%) of food and beverage expenditures, both healthy and unhealthy, than other food retail outlets. Although patronized less frequently, convenience stores were notable purveyors of unhealthy foods.

Conclusions: Findings highlight the need to implement policies that can help to decrease unhealthy food purchases in full-service supermarkets and convenience stores and increase healthy food purchases in convenience stores.