Double Up Food Bucks
Fair Food Network’s own Double Up Michigan team aims to help families bring home healthy fruits and vegetables while supporting Michigan farmers, in this case by working with grocers and food distribution networks to create more connections between what’s being grown locally and what’s available on store shelves. “Independent stores want to offer more fresh, local options, but they often don’t have the infrastructure, sourcing connections, or volume needed to access Michigan-grown produce consistently,” says Charles Walker, retail specialist. “They need support to bridge that gap—so they can be part of the solution in bringing healthy food closer to home.” Double Up Michigan aims to ensure the nearly 30 food retail locations in the city buy 20% or more locally grown produce during peak growing season in Michigan as a key requirement of being a part of the program. This helps build the market for Michigan farmers by driving demand for locally grown fruits and vegetables as part of the program model. Double Up Food Bucks in Michigan not only helps people using SNAP benefits but also supports farmer viability and keeps dollars circulating in local economies.
While Danu Hof Family Farm is expanding its operations to meet growing demand, other awardees, such as 
to improve underserved communities for both people and pollinators by transforming blighted vacant lots into
The Hub’s capacity building awards are one way that Fair Food Network is supporting partners who are scaling innovations that contend with nutrition insecurity. As program partners demonstrate the value of these innovations, they are shared with others in the field. “One of the reasons we started the program during the pandemic is because so many federally funded programs were experiencing the same challenges like how to pay for PPE or pivot operations to meet COVID protocols,” says Fair Food Network’s Senior Director of Nutrition Incentives, Erica Christensen Raml. “Since then, the focus of the fund has evolved to continue meeting the changing times. We have found that certain barriers to program usage — like transportation issues or language access — are common program-wide.”
Together with our partners, Fair Food Network is supporting growing demand and helping nascent programs -— from Esperanza Community Farms in Watsonville, CA, to Knowledge Quest in Memphis, to Guahan Sustainable Culture in Guam — to explore innovative methods for service delivery and build organizational capacity to apply for and implement the large federal awards that make the impacts of nutrition incentive and produce prescription projects possible. And while each community’s program has the freedom to adapt to local needs, all — whether new or already established — are finding innovative ways to provide healthy food options for families who need it most, increase sales and expand the customer base for participating businesses, and produce more income for local farmers. “Capacity building grants give us a chance to provide additional support to communities that are innovating in scalable ways and can serve as models of resilience for the nutrition incentive field,” says Raml. “And they’re also a way to fund some really great ideas.”
A community-owned grocery store growing resilience for local farmers and families
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A community-owned grocery store growing resilience for local farmers and families
Michigan
Ask Jeremy Andrews what “self-reliance” means and you’re likely to hear a passionate history of farmers markets, CSAs, shared commercial kitchens, community gardens, incubator farms — all initiatives he helped to generate through his community-based nonprofit, Sprout Urban Farms, in Battle Creek, Michigan.
“Our focus is on connection, communication, and cooperation. If you want to promote local self-reliance, you’ve got to have buy-in from the people in your community,” says Andrews. “This is a product of the people in the Battle Creek community.”
This is Uproot Market & Eatery, a full-service food cooperative launching in spring 2025 that is the next step in Sprout’s community-driven journey toward building a thriving and self-reliant local food economy. “Uproot [Market] is a way for us to weave together a lot of what we’ve been building over the past 10 years or so,” says Andrews. “Our focus is on the wellbeing of the community because, as a not-for-profit and a co-op, the market is owned by the community.”
Ownership matters. Ask Joel Moyer, Director of Investments at Fair Food Network. “Uproot is a member-based co-op,” says Moyer. “The local community wanted this and now its members collectively own it — and when you own a vital, thriving food business, you’ll work hard to keep it that way.”
Fair Food Network has worked closely and extensively with Andrews and Sprout since 2019, brokering capital investments and coordinating technical assistance to support the evolution of the consumer-owned food cooperative. Most recently, Fair Food Fund provided a guaranty on a loan from Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) for property improvements and buildout of the new storefront.
When Uproot Market & Eatery opens this summer, Andrews and the lenders who provided the capital know it will be successful because more than 300 Battle Creek residents own a share of it. “Owners are invested in their business, and our owners are our customers,” says Andrews. “Without local farmers, we don’t exist. Without our members, we don’t exist. And because of Uproot’s robust and growing membership, we’re pooling resources to create economic impacts that are unobtainable by any one person alone.”