Highlight

Advancing community health with nutrition incentives and produce prescriptions

Access to healthy food is well documented to reduce people's risk of chronic health conditions and contribute to better health and well-being. While the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aims to alleviate food insecurity, the primary focus of the Double Up Food Bucks nutrition incentive program has always been ensuring that children and families not only have access to enough food, but the vital nutrients that are the foundation of a healthy, active life and healthy communities.

Double Up Food Bucks was launched at five Detroit-area farmers markets in 2009 and has since become a model for nutrition incentive programs across the US. Nutrition incentive programs like Double Up Food Bucks are designed to improve overall individual and community health by incentivizing the purchase and consumption of fruits and vegetables by consumers participating in the SNAP program. Similarly, produce prescriptions are a nutrition incentive that increases household food security while reducing healthcare usage and associated costs. “Rather than stigmatize or limit what food people can access, nutrition incentive programs help people choose the healthy foods they want to eat, while also stimulating the local economy,” says Holly Parker, Chief Strategy and Program Officer at Fair Food Network.

To ensure that nutrition incentives are available across the US, Fair Food Network supports produce prescription and nutrition incentive projects as a partner Nutrition Incentive Hub alongside University of California San Francisco and led by Center for Nutrition & Health Impact. The partnership supports training, technical assistance, reporting, and evaluation to strengthen programs all across the country.

In addition to providing technical assistance, Fair Food Network aims to amplify a unified voice in support of nutrition incentive programs and a strong SNAP program. As part of these efforts, the organization actively advocates for the continuation of federal funding for produce prescription and nutrition incentive programs like Double Up Food Bucks. In the past year, Fair Food Network coordinated advocacy efforts supporting the advancement of nutrition incentive programs, working with legislators and their staffs to educate them on the importance of nutrition incentives in providing families nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables.

One notable aspect of practitioners that implement nutrition incentive programs is their ability to innovate and adapt programming to local needs. In our national policy and technical assistance efforts, we’ve had the privilege to work with, support, and learn from organizations all across the country. “Nutrition incentive programs have successfully adapted to serve the unique needs of their communities and can vary a great deal regionally and culturally,” added Parker. Fair Food Network has adapted technical assistance and capacity building offerings through the Nutrition Incentive Hub to be responsive to these varying needs.

In remote locations such as Bethel, Alaska, for instance, the Bethel Community Services Foundation (BCSF) is leveraging a capacity building grant from the Nutrition Incentive Hub to begin testing shipping materials used to send produce to small villages in Alaska. BCSF serves the largely Yup’ik community of Bethel and the surrounding subarctic region, dotted with remote settlements not easily accessible except by plane. With just over 6,000 inhabitants, Bethel is the largest population center in western Alaska. The Community Center is responsible for, among many other things, running the produce prescription program that serves the area. Their goal is to improve the quality and increase the quantity of fresh produce shipped to participants who have limited fresh options in their local stores.

“Produce prescriptions allow health care providers to prescribe fresh fruits and vegetables to patients, just like they’d prescribe medication,” says Parker. To be effective in addressing diet-related conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, participants need consistent access to the healthy foods the program provides. The ability for BCSF to customize its program to reach Alaska’s far-flung rural communities is an advantage of the flexible nature of nutrition incentive programs and the capacity building grants that make local innovations possible. And those advantages ripple throughout the nutrition incentive field when programs test innovations that can be scaled to support community resilience elsewhere. “Innovations like BCSF’s program help them reach particularly vulnerable populations while serving as models for what programs in remote areas can do,” said Parker.

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.

“Nutrition incentive programs, including produce prescriptions, have proven to be very flexible in meeting local needs,” says Fair Food Network’s Parker. “That’s one of the reasons they’re so effective, and the main reason we’re seeing these programs gain traction all across the country.”

The popularity of nutrition incentive programs like Double Up does not, however, guarantee their future success. More work is needed to ensure the impact of these programs continues. “Nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs have become part of the fabric of their communities, and these programs are absolutely dependent on federal funding,” says Alex Canepa, Policy Director at Fair Food Network. It will be essential in the coming year to work with the USDA and policymakers to ensure that nutrition incentives — supported by Republicans, Democrats, farmers, and families — are faithfully implemented in communities across the country. “What we know, and what participants in nutrition incentive programs know,” says Canepa, “is that there’s power in choosing the foods your family eats.”

Highlight

A community-owned grocery store growing resilience for local farmers and families

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.” 

Highlight

Seeding Michigan’s Food and Farm Future

Michigan Good Food Fund, administered by Fair Food Network alongside a statewide lending network and 20-member stakeholder board, awarded 18 Michigan food and farm businesses a total of nearly $250,000 in 2024 as part of its annual Seed Awards program. Seed Awards are given to food entrepreneurs aligned with Michigan Good Food Fund’s Stakeholder Board investing performance targets. Awardees are located across the state, and these grants aim to help them prepare for financing or take their business to the next level. These grants represent not just financial investment, but an acknowledgment of the vital role farms and food distributors play in strengthening Michigan’s food value chain.

One of the dedicated entrepreneurs who received seed funding in 2024 is Danu Hof Family Farm. Danu Hof Family Farm is a beacon of sustainable farming and culinary commitment located just north of Mancelona in northern Michigan. Founded in 2017 by a couple with deep roots in hospitality and culinary arts, Caitlin McSweeney-Steffes and her husband, Lawrence McSweeney-Steffes Danu Hof has revitalized a piece of rural Michigan and contributed pigs, chickens, a wide array of vegetables, and culinary services like catering and cooking classes to the local food economy.

“We are both chefs originally and deeply rooted in our food system,” says McSweeney-Steffes. “We originally started because, being a part of the food system, we experienced how broken it can be.” She emphasizes the positive changes that the seed funding supports as the farm aims to expand its fresh produce offerings and broaden access to local, healthy foods. “We can send more local food to the schools in our community,” she says. “And we can allow greater access for those who participate in WIC, Senior Project Fresh, SNAP, and Double Up Food Bucks systems at our farm store and local farmers markets.”

While Danu Hof Family Farm is expanding its operations to meet growing demand, other awardees, such as Detroit Hives, are creating awareness and educating their communities about improving physical and mental health through food. Detroit Hives co-founder, Tim Jackson, was dealing with a persistent health problem and turned to raw honey as a remedy. He and fellow co-founder, Nicole Lindsey, became intrigued by honey’s healing qualities and were convinced that bees and honey could not only be a key to improved health but also play a significant role in revitalizing Detroit’s decimated neighborhoods. Launching Detroit Hives in 2016, Jackson and Lindsey sought to educate their community about the importance of pollinators and local raw honey, and their impact within our local ecosystems. “Detroit Hives is addressing disparities within marginalized communities by using pollinator habitats to reactivate vacant properties and facilitate food security, positive health outcomes, and environmental justice,” says Jackson. “With support from the Michigan Good Food Fund, Detroit Hives is poised to continue its ongoing mission to improve underserved communities for both people and pollinators by transforming blighted vacant lots into thriving green spaces, while also working to address food insecurity, food safety, and economic mobility.”

Danu Hof Family Farm and Detroit Hives were just two of the 18 Seed Award winners in 2024. The widespread interest in our Seed Awards program is a testament to the incredible talent and innovation within Michigan’s food and farm sector, as well as the need for such microgrants in the state’s food entrepreneurial community. “These businesses truly embody the mission of Michigan Good Food Fund, and we are excited to see the positive impact they will have on their communities in the coming years,” shared Aaron Jackson, Director of Michigan Good Food Fund at Fair Food Network.

Highlight

Scaling solutions that work through capacity and innovation awards

When Fair Food Network launched a special fund on behalf of the Nutrition Incentive Hub to help deepen the impact of nutrition incentive programs at the height of the pandemic, it was a creative way to “meet the moment” during an unprecedented crisis. What the fund emphasized is that, for families struggling to put healthy food on the table, and for farmers, food retailers, and fledgling nutrition incentive programs coalescing to form a more resilient local food system, the moment is always now.

In the ensuing years, the Capacity Building and Innovation Fund has grown as a vital resource for nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs tackling challenges, dismantling barriers to program usage, and enhancing the nutrition incentive user experience. In the latest round of funding in December, the Hub awarded more than $1.2 million to 39 organizations to increase local food system resilience across 19 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, The US Virgin Islands, and Washington, DC.

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.”

In 2024, for example, the Hub provided an award to Mid-America Regional Council in Kansas City, MO to address language and transportation barriers to patients eligible but unable to access the local produce prescription program, KC Fresh Rx. With CBIF funds, the Regional Council is now able to provide KC Fresh Rx materials in three additional languages in high demand. Transportation will also be provided to nutrition education classes and grocery stores where participants can purchase fruits and vegetables with their KC Fresh Rx cards. Similarly, Montefiore, a teaching hospital in New York City, is leveraging its 2024 CBIF grant to make transportation to and from its produce prescription pickup point at the Bronx Health Collective available to all participants in the local produce prescription program, FreshTakes.

While these programs are encouraged to share their challenges, successes, and strategies for remaining resilient, each community has its own unique histories and food systems. “What makes these capacity building grants so impactful is how adaptable this funding is to localized needs,” says Raml. “With the CBIF and technical assistance provided by the Hub, we’ve created a powerful mechanism to help communities create more resilient local food and agriculture systems.”

Take the CBIF grant to the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT). NOFA-VT and Good Shepherd Food Bank have been working to expand equitable access to two regional SNAP incentive programs serving the Northeast. Responding to calls from multilingual community members, farmers market managers, and direct service providers who work with immigrant, refugee, and New American communities, NOFA-VT and Good Shepherd have translated the Crop Cash and Farm Fresh Reward webpages and outreach materials into multiple languages, coordinated with partner organizations to inform their communities about the two programs, and conducted in-person outreach events with interpreters. The Hub’s capacity building funds will build on this foundation, focusing efforts on feedback from community partners and program participants to advance program accessibility and enroll more community members in the programs.

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.”

Highlight

Strengthening Community Connections

Since its launch over a decade ago in Flint, the Double Up Food Bucks program has been so popular that the city has become a centerpiece for program innovations. In 2014, in response to the Water Crisis, Fair Food Network expanded the foods eligible for earning Double Up in Flint, helping families bring home even more healthy food. Flint hosted our Cashier Engagement Pilot and introduced innovations to the point-of-sale system that are now used to seamlessly process Double Up transactions in locations across Michigan.

But despite Double Up’s historic impact in the city and its consistent presence as a community resource for more than a decade, Double Up usage in Flint — unlike in every other community where the program is available in Michigan — has declined in recent years. That means that at a time when Fair Food Network was making a concerted effort to increase program usage and reach more participants, Flint participants were using Double Up less.

In 2023, we launched a new community engagement strategy focused on gaining insight into this anomaly and seeking to learn more about how people were using Double Up in Flint. What we discovered from our conversations provided a lesson in the necessity of establishing and maintaining trust with program participants and making program adjustments informed by the unique needs of each community where we work. Leveraging our deep connection to the city of Flint, we spoke with local retailers, farmers, families, and evolve Double Up to meet Flint shoppers where they’re at.

Our Double Up team hosted a series of in-person events in 2023 to raise awareness, increase our presence in the community, and rebuild trust in the program. In addition, we expanded the visibility of the program by showing up more frequently in more places, including participating in promotions hosted by Women, Infants, & Children (WIC) and partnerships with Hurley Medical Center's Food FARMacy, Flint Fresh Mobile Market, and the Crim Fitness Foundation. Program marketing materials better reflected the unique experience of Flint Double Up participants, with video and photography highlighting local shoppers, imagery, and stories; a radio ad featuring a local mother and son; and a “How Do You Double Up?” video sharing the unique ways Flint shoppers can use the program.

Feedback from shoppers and program staff also helped us to better reach Flint residents who use SNAP. To ensure shoppers had a positive experience with the program, we intensified our Double Up site visits and ran more cashier engagement events. Relaunching Double Up at a critical location where the program had recently been discontinued proved to be a boon to the surrounding neighborhood. And we put more targeted advertising in places frequented by SNAP shoppers, like buses and bus terminals. “A lot of shoppers rely on the bus system to get to and from Double Up locations,” said Program Ambassador Aaron Neeley. “The main bus terminal is right across from the Flint Farmers Market. So, the bus ads and radio ads were very effective and reached a lot of Double Up customers.”

In addition to ramping up outreach activities, we evolved the program to meet Flint participants’ specific needs, relying on feedback from farmers, retailers, and shoppers to guide how Double Up works in the city. Again and again, we heard from program participants that the $10/day earning limit — temporarily reduced from $20/day in response to overwhelming demand during the pandemic — was forcing Flint families to make some difficult choices. While our team was in town to attend Rep. Dan Kildee’s press conference on the farm bill, we observed one family returning fruit to the shelf so they could stay within their Double Up budget. Said one Flint shopper: “I rely on Double Up Food Bucks. The limit change really hurt me.”

Flint families spoke and we listened: In fall of 2023, upon receiving an essential infusion of funding for Double Up from both state and federal sources, Fair Food Network raised the daily earning limit to its previous maximum of $20. The return to the familiar daily earning limit, said Associate Director of Double Up Food Bucks Michigan, Cassidy Strome, was a significant factor in turning around the yearslong decline in Double Up usage in Flint, contributing to a 49 percent increase in program usage since September 2023.

In 2024, we continue to work to keep Flint program usage high. Lessons learned over the past three years in Flint have reinforced the importance of showing up in person more often; strengthening our connections and building new ones; working alongside community partners to turn feedback into action; and raisings the visibility of a program that will continue to play an outsized role in the lives of Flint families. To Flint Farmers Market Manager, Karianne Martus, it’s hard to overstate the impact that Double Up Food Bucks has had — and will continue to have — in Flint: “I truly cannot imagine our market or our community without it.”

Highlight

Connecting Farmers and Communities

With strawberries ubiquitous on supermarket shelves even in January, we tend to think of warm-weather states providing America’s fruit and vegetable bounty. A little-known fact is that Michigan, even with its northerly latitude and long winters, has the second most diverse agricultural output in the United States, offering more than 300 different commodities from more than 50,000 farms dotting the landscape from Detroit to the Upper Peninsula.

Our Fair Food Fund bolsters local food systems by supporting Michigan farmers in getting their produce to market, creating networks and partnerships that strengthen the needed infrastructure connecting communities to farmers and the abundance grown all around them. Fair Food Fund’s financing and technical assistance allowed two such enterprises, Great Lakes Farm to Freezer and Lakeshore Depot, the opportunity to bring more locally grown food to the communities where they live and beyond.

Great Lakes Farm to Freezer is a West Michigan processor distributing frozen produce exclusively sourced from Michigan farms to institutions, businesses, and families. Great Lakes Farm to Freezer’s commitment to supporting local agriculture includes offering local growers two and three times what other processors pay. A Fair Food Fund loan enabled the company to equip and outfit a new facility in Caledonia, Mich. that will support increased capacity for in-house production and enhance Great Lakes Farm to Freezer’s potential for expansion throughout the Great Lakes region.

Farther north, in the largely rural Upper Peninsula community of Marquette, Mich., Lakeshore Depot serves as a “farm stop” (a hybrid grocery store/farmers market) that exclusively features local and regional foods and seasonal, fresh produce. Lakeshore Depot currently sources from 48 local farmers — who receive 75% of the sale of their produce — and an additional 38 local food vendors. Fair Food Fund’s microloan in 2023 helped to prepare Lakeshore Depot for future financing that will support their long-term growth plan, including hiring a full-time manager and increasing product selection.

Even as these businesses broaden their offerings and expand their reach, they remain committed to their communities. Said Lakeshore Depot founder and owner, Mike Hainstock: “I wanted the store to have an impact felt throughout our local community, one that our community as a whole is excited about and carries real and positive change moving into the future.”

Highlight

Reducing Food Waste for a Greater Purpose

Americans throw away more food than any other country, with nearly 92 billion pounds of food — or more than one-third of the U.S. food supply — rotting in landfills annually. This represents not only the loss of nutritious food that could have helped to feed families, but has environmental consequences in the wasted land, water, labor, and energy used to produce it. And as that waste decomposes, it produces harmful greenhouse gases. All told, it is estimated that the production of food that is eventually left to decompose in a landfill creates the equivalent greenhouse emissions of 37 million cars.

Through the work of our Fair Food Fund, we recognize the opportunity to increase the social and environmental impact of our work by supporting waste reduction businesses whose sustainable practices support resilient agriculture by diverting and upcycling food waste.

Located outside of Grand Rapids, Mich., Wormies is a vermicomposting (worm compost) business that helps local residents, restaurants and food product makers reduce their waste by upcycling food scraps into premium compost for sale to local producers and farmers. “Worms’ life purpose is to break down organic matter and make an all-natural fertilizer for plants,” says Wormies founder, Luis Chen. “Worms are turning waste into a resource of the highest value.”

Our Fair Food Fund provided Wormies with a line of credit to meet the match requirement on a grant from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. The grant has allowed Wormies to expand its processing capacity from 60 to 200 cubic yards of food waste per month and increase its daily clientele from 610 to 2,000 households and businesses. “Composting prevents landfills from polluting the land and the waterways and the air we breathe,” says Chen. “Our community has a great opportunity to significantly reduce landfill contamination.”

We aim to make more investments in businesses like Wormies that are generating win-wins: advancing positive change in the food system and providing continuous benefits to their community and beyond.

Highlight

Continuing to Meet Community Needs

With the cost of many grocery items hovering at historic highs, more and more Americans simply don’t have enough to eat. Without assistance, they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. The need for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) has never been greater, with more than 40 million Americans relying on the program to put food on the table. And yet, even with SNAP, healthy and nutritious food is often out of reach for families with low household incomes.

Some of the most vulnerable consumers are forced to make daily decisions between buying healthy and affordable food. For Michiganders, that’s where programs like Double Up Food Bucks can help. Participants in SNAP are automatically eligible to use the Double Up program at one of its 234 participating farmers market and grocery store locations. Double Up incentivizes the purchase of healthy food by matching, dollar for dollar, SNAP purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables, up to $20 per day.  As one Michigan shopper put it, Double Up is the difference between eating fruits and vegetables and going without. “I couldn’t afford [fresh fruits and vegetables] without the program,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to try to help my grandmother...and maintain her where we’re at. It’s just me trying to hold things together as much as possible,” she said. “Double Up Food Bucks has helped.”  

For many Michiganders, the program is essential. And it’s not only consumers who benefit. All Double Up purchases at farmers markets support local agriculture. And during peak growing season, participating grocery stores stock more locally grown fruits and vegetables in their produce sections. Said one Michigan farmer: “It’s a program that supports small-scale Michigan vegetable growers while also increasing access to fresh, healthy foods for low-income folks — a win-win.” 

As farmers markets and Double Up grocers experience the benefits of increased purchases of local produce, the economic benefits ripple outward into communities, making the program a triple win. “We’re able to get assistance and then we’re putting it right back into our community and back to the farmers near our home, and so they’re able to get assistance,” said one SNAP shopper. “It makes for a more thriving market, a more thriving community, socially and economically.” 

“Trying to eat healthy, local foods costs hundreds of dollars a month no matter where I shop,” added another. “Not having to worry about this takes so much of the burden off of my plate because otherwise, I would be spending about [as] much as my rent on food, and after that cost I wouldn't normally have much money left over.” 

The Double Up program has weathered especially challenging times recently, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, even while helping to mitigate some of the effects of the crisis and take on persistent high inflation that has disproportionately hit food prices. Yet food insecurity predates the coronavirus and inflation, and presents a growing problem in the U.S. Double Up remains an essential community resource no matter what’s happening in the world around us. “We definitely saw a spike in usage during the pandemic — and a lot of new folks,” said Cassidy Strome, Associate Director of Double Up Food Bucks Michigan at Fair Food Network. “And still, even post-pandemic, we’re seeing elevated participation in the Double Up program.” 

“People really appreciate — and rely on — Double Up Food Bucks,” she added. 

Fair Food Network’s Double Up Food Bucks is a nutrition incentive program that aims to increase fruit and vegetable purchasing among people who use SNAP as part of their monthly food budget. The program is funded by the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP), a grant program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with funds appropriated by the 2018 Farm Bill. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) is firmly committed to creating marketing opportunities for Michigan fruit and vegetable growers and provides some of the matching funding for Double Up in Michigan.  

Highlight

Advocacy in Action

Championing polices that bring proven, restorative solutions to scale.

The 2023 farm bill is a critical juncture in the national effort to improve nutrition security for the approximately 40 million low-income families and individuals who rely on SNAP. As the largest federal investment in our food and farming systems, SNAP distributes more than $80 billion per year, much of it to families struggling to put food on the table.

To ensure that those dollars provide fresh, locally grown food options for communities around the country, Fair Food Network’s policy team uses its experience on the ground and in the legislature to channel funding and political momentum toward restorative solutions like nutrition incentives and produce prescription programs. Our advocacy efforts in 2022 helped to set the stage for negotiations around the 2023 farm bill and bring proven solutions to scale at the state level.

In 2022, Fair Food Network led a collective effort to advance federal policy priorities for the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) by establishing the Alliance for National Nutrition Incentives (ANNI). ANNI includes member organizations that range from industry trade groups, such as the Farmers Market Coalition and National Grocers Association, and consumer advocacy organizations like Union of Concerned Scientists and Center for Science in the Public Interest, to nonprofit health agencies like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the American Heart Association. ANNI also intentionally engages lower capacity, grassroots, and BIPOC-led organizations—those that have often been underrepresented in the policy development process—in defining priorities.

The disparate stakeholders that comprise ANNI—ranging from agriculture, anti-hunger, public health, retail advocacy, and other interests—share support for the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP, formerly FINI), which was established in the 2014 farm bill with strong bipartisan backing. GusNIP provides funding for produce prescription and nutrition incentive programs like Double Up Food Bucks, helping SNAP participants access and choose more fresh fruits and vegetables for their families in 48 states.

“Very few farm bill programs attract bi-partisan engagement as broadly as fruit and vegetable incentives. When all those different voices are singing in harmony, it can be a beautiful and highly impactful tune,” said Mark Nicholson, senior director of policy at Fair Food Network. “We are so heartened by the diverse engagement from the GusNIP advocacy community around collective priorities for the 2023 farm bill.”

In 2022, ANNI worked through open dialogue and collaboration to first identify areas of mutual agreement that the diverse group of GusNIP stakeholders can advance together. Coalition members determined a set of priorities that could garner broad support and in 2023 introduced these priorities in draft farm bill legislation, calling for a number of modifications to the current GusNIP policy. One such change would be the reduction or elimination of the federal match requirement for GusNIP grantees. Programs applying for GusNIP funding are required to secure a one-to-one match, meaning that they must find funding sources to match, dollar for dollar, the awards they receive through GusNIP. This requirement of GusNIP grantees is especially burdensome for first-time applicants to the program and is often prohibitive enough to keep some programs from applying for GusNIP funding altogether. Coalition members agreed that the match requirement was inhibiting the growth and expansion of nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs, no matter their size. To alleviate this burden and strengthen our collective capacity and impact, the ANNI coalition is advocating for the reduction of the match requirement to 25% of the federal award, and the total elimination of the requirement for pilot programs.

In addition to advocating for a reduction in the match requirement, ANNI is working to ensure adequate funding for nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs, as well as recommending changes to improve coordination between the federal agencies responsible for GusNIP. To ensure these priorities are included in the 2023 farm bill, Fair Food Network and representatives of ANNI have worked to increase policymakers’ awareness of the importance of healthy food incentives. The coalition has convened with key policymakers as an opportunity to establish and strengthen relationships, as well as convey the impact and success of nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs and the challenges they face sustaining and scaling those impacts.

“One constant in Washington is the high turnover of both elected officials and their staff, especially across the five-year farm bill cycle. This requires ceaseless education and engagement on the Hill,” commented Nicholson. “The ability to share broad coalition policy priorities with legislative staff is a tremendous value-add for them as well as the community we advocate for.”

Fair Food Network’s policy advocacy work extends to the state level as well, where we worked with programs in New York, Mississippi, and Texas to successfully lobby for first-time state funding of nutrition incentives and similarly helped to position Double Up in New Jersey for success in its ongoing campaign for state funding. Our engagement with state appropriators and budget officials in 2022 has succeeded in demonstrating the imperative of sustaining the Double Up program in our home state of Michigan, as well: In June 2023, Michigan legislators announced funding for Double Up Food Bucks totalling $4.9 million through the end of 2024. The coordinated effort of our policy team to advocate for state funding of Double Up Food Bucks means that families in communities as far apart as Syracuse and Gulfport and Flint will continue to have consistent and local access to locally grown fruits and vegetables.

Success in achieving our 2023 policy objectives has helped to scale programs for statewide reach and laid the groundwork for a bipartisan farm bill that we anticipate will make fruits and vegetables more accessible to all SNAP recipients.

“Every farm bill has built upon earlier success for the GusNIP community, and our hope is that 2023 is no different,” commented Nicholson. “As fruit and vegetable incentives continue to grow its innovation and evaluation and scale nationally, the Alliance for National Nutrition Incentives, powered by our advocacy expertise, is setting the stage for increased support in the current farm bill and also helping to build a movement for long-term systemic change.”

Learn more about GusNIP advocacy.

Highlight

Supporting Nutrition Incentives Nationwide

With the Nutrition Incentive Hub

In 2019, Fair Food Network and long-time evaluation partner Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition co-designed and co-developed the Nutrition Incentive Program Training, Technical Assistance, Evaluation, and Information Center (NTAE) to serve the needs of the Double Up Food Bucks national network and the broader field of Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) grantees.

In the time since its founding, the Nutrition Incentive Hub — or Hub — as the NTAE is affectionately known, has become the recognized source of healthy food incentive learning, evaluation, and support. Fair Food Network has used its knowledge, resources, and experience gained through the success of its pioneering, home-grown nutrition incentive program (Double Up Food Bucks) in Michigan to help communities across the US start, strengthen, and scale their own nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs.

As GusNIP-funded projects continue to start up and scale up across the country, we are seeing promising results. The Hub’s national evaluation of GusNIP-funded incentive programs show that participants eat more fruits and vegetables than the average adult. And the longer they participate in such programs, the more fruits and vegetables they eat over time. As the Hub works to build on this exciting momentum, GusNIP-funded programs continue to face challenges to scaling up to meet community needs.

Solving problems, together

The Hub works with programs of all sizes—from those just establishing a foothold to mature organizations scaling statewide—to strategically solve common problems. No matter the size of the operation, one challenge all programs contend with is implementing technology. Programs like Double Up that require SNAP transactions need software that is built into the farmers market or grocery store point of sale (POS) system. Because of the difference in program size and mechanics, what works best for one program may not work at all for another. To solve this dilemma, the Hub is working with stakeholders to refine system requirements and foster buy-in for clear, shared guidelines for incentive processing and distribution technology.

Innovations

A key function of the Hub is to test and/or document innovations in order to promote and scale what works. Many programs, for instance, inspired by changes in shopping behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic, are interested in offering an e-commerce platform and the option to make SNAP purchases online. These efforts are by nature trial-and-error, and the Hub is coordinating learning to disseminate best practices among grantees as they test solutions to common obstacles.

Currently trending among GusNIP grantees are produce box programs and home delivery offerings. In this model, shoppers receive a farm share box with pre-selected, GusNIP-eligible fruits and vegetables. In many cases, the GusNIP awardee assembles these boxes and delivers them to the shopper, increasing access to fruits and vegetables for those who may be homebound, disabled, or undergoing medical treatments. Programs across the country — from South Carolina to Washington, from Oregon to Ohio, from Texas to Washington, DC — all received GusNIP awards in 2022 that supported farm share boxes. As this trend grows, the Hub is offering guidance on how best to establish and support farm share box programs across the country.

Supporting the field

One thing all nutrition incentive and produce prescription programs have in common is the need to secure funding to sustain their operations. A major source of this funding is the USDA’s GusNIP program, which in 2022 invited applications for initiatives to innovate nutrition incentive and produce prescription implementation. Composing a large-scale GusNIP application is challenging even for seasoned veterans, and the Nutrition Incentive Hub acts as a guide, helping practitioners navigate the complex application process. In 2022, GusNIP-funded produce prescription and nutrition incentive grantees were required for the first time to have a one-on-one consultation with the Hub. Fair Food Network led the process, providing more than 180 hours of technical assistance to 166 organizations, 75% of which were first-time applicants to GusNIP. GusNIP awards included $20.7 million for 43 produce prescription programs, 95% of which were first-time GusNIP applicants who the Hub will assist with new technical assistance offerings customized for their specific needs in 2023.

Still, other more established programs have extensive operating experience and are looking to scale their programs statewide. With expansion comes the need for additional fundraising and coalition building. In 2022 FFN helped programs across the country to better understand the process for pursuing and securing state-level funding. For example, we gave Field & Fork Network in New York a crash course in the appropriations process. Double Up New York received first-time funding of $2 million from the New York state legislature in 2022 and is now working to secure permanent funding for Double Up in the state budget. We also provided technical support to Jackson Medical Mall Foundation’s efforts to educate the Mississippi state legislature about incentives, including commissioning a study of Double Up Mississippi demonstrating the economic impact of nutrition incentives in their state. Double Up Mississippi received first-time state funding of $400,000 in 2022. Other successes included the Sustainable Food Center’s securing of $6 million dollars in the 2024 Texas state budget, and City Green now strongly positioned to secure first-time funding from the New Jersey legislature in 2023.

Building capacity

In 2022, the Hub awarded $1 million to twenty-four nutrition incentive and produce prescription projects across the country to support initiatives that expand their reach, enhance community engagement, and strengthen their program’s long-term sustainability in high-need communities. Grants of up to $50,000 each will enhance nutrition incentive and produce prescription projects at farmers markets and grocery stores in sixteen states and the Blackfeet Nation (Montana) to expand affordable access to fruits and vegetables as the need for nutrition security remains heightened.

As a trusted partner for program development, technical assistance, and evaluation, the Nutrition Incentive Hub in 2022 helped to develop, document, and model approaches that create immediate impact, support community-driven progress, and change systems for the better.

Highlight

A Double Up Michigan Partnership Improves Local Sourcing

With Taste the Local Difference

In 2022, Fair Food Network’s Double Up Food Bucks program partnered with Taste the Local Difference to take a closer look at ways of improving local sourcing for grocery stores in Detroit.

Taste the Local Difference has an expansive statewide network of relationships with Michigan’s farmers, farmers markets, and retail grocers. These connections are key to helping food retailers in places like Detroit and other participating locations across the state attain and maintain Double Up’s 20% local sourcing requirement during peak growing season.

Paul Green, Local Food Retail Specialist at Taste the Local Difference, led this work on behalf of Double Up Food Bucks. To start, Green partnered closely with the grocery store owners and managers to better understand existing produce supply chains and barriers for sourcing local produce. Over the first year of the project, he began to uncover common issues related to local sourcing in Detroit and identified why certain stores were more successful than others.     

Green says, “For many store managers and owners, it’s the first time they’ve had support to look at their supply chains and develop new tools and strategies to source more local food. It’s often not an issue of retailers wanting to source more locally—there are so many barriers at play. It’s taken a year to get to a place where we understand the challenges they are facing and can truly talk about what’s possible.”   

“Everybody wants this to work,” he continued. “Not a single person I’ve spoken to opposes the idea of local [sourcing]. They just don’t have the resources—whatever they might be—to really focus on this.”

What did Green learn so far?  

It takes a lot of time to research ways to source local produce for grocery stores. It’s often time store owners or managers don’t have, especially when they are trying to keep their doors open. Green commented that when they’re able to find a local sourcing formula that works, they will move forward with it.  

There are opportunities to build connections between the local food distribution system, suppliers, and grocery stores. Local grocery stores offer the produce available to them through their suppliers. If suppliers are not connected to local food distributors, it inherently limits access to such products.

Many grocery stores are getting more local foods than reported. Michigan-grown produce requires separate tracking. It is not always obvious what was grown locally when it arrives at the grocery store. In some cases, invoices identify if the produce supplied is local, but not always. This makes it difficult for retailers to report.

For grocery stores, sometimes it’s as simple as asking for what you need. Green recalled a visit to one food retailer: The manager called his distributor on the spot and asked for more locally sourced produce. The supplier immediately said yes. The food retailer began receiving a monthly report detailing the store’s Michigan produce purchases. In another instance, he learned that a general manager at a store in an under-resourced area regularly achieved the 20 percent goal by directing their produce buyer to prioritize locally sourced produce from July to November. Lastly, one of the distributors that Green spoke to said they implemented a new Michigan section in their weekly food order book to make it easier for grocery stores to identify local produce.

Grocery stores choose products based on what makes financial sense for them—especially when contending with high inflation rates or during challenging times like the COVID crisis. Store managers and owners do their best to reach the 20 percent local sourcing requirement, but they often don’t have time to research ways to source more local products, even when it can make financial sense.

And this is exactly where Green focused his efforts, connecting locally sourced food within Michigan’s farm-to-fork networks to retailers and, ultimately, consumers—to the benefit of all involved.

“Local food makes so much possible in Michigan,” Green stated. “There’s a lot of food being grown in Michigan to do a lot of feeding. When we can better connect the farmer to retailer to the consumer, we can alleviate a lot of challenges in the community. More dollars into the pockets of farmers, strong local economies, and more healthy food choices for Michigan families.”

Looking ahead, Fair Food Network and Taste the Local Difference aim to work with more distributors to prioritize locally grown produce in Michigan grocery stores. The supply-chain benefits of increased wholesale purchases of Michigan produce can lower prices for shoppers who are conscious of buying locally—especially those who use Double Up. And the distributors love selling Michigan produce—after all, they’re Michigan food businesses, too.

Local sourcing is a win for everyone—from growers to sellers to shoppers—that wants to support Michigan grown produce and make it more accessible to Double Up shoppers in places like Detroit and beyond.  

"Double Up Food Bucks continues to be a win for families, farmers, and local economies,” said Cassidy Strome, Acting Director for Double Up Food Bucks in Michigan. "Now more than ever, we see and hear how impactful Double Up is as more families utilize the program across the state. The need for affordable food that nourishes the body and soul continues to grow, and our partnerships with food advocates, the community, and funders are critical to Double Up's success."  

Double Up Food Bucks is a nutrition incentive program that aims to increase fruit and vegetable purchasing among people who use SNAP as part of their monthly food budget. The program is funded by the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP), a grant program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) with funds appropriated by the 2018 Farm Bill. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) is firmly committed to creating marketing opportunities for Michigan fruit and vegetable growers and provides some of the matching funding for Double Up in Michigan.