C Fresh Market is a 23,000-square-foot supermarket located in River Bend — one of the oldest and most ethnically diverse communities in Des Moines, Iowa. The community had not had a full-service supermarket for almost 10 years when C Fresh opened in January of 2013. The store has been developing a diverse and loyal customer base ever since and offers a variety of affordable ethnic and international groceries to the surrounding population.

The project received $712,000 in loan financing from IFF, a nonprofit community development financial institution serving the Midwest region.

In 2011, Salud Corporation received a $341,000 Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) grant to grow the olive oil milling, bottling, and distribution capacities at a local facility in Dripping Springs, Texas. Salud Corporation is a for-profit social enterprise subsidiary of Business and Community Lenders of Texas (BCL of Texas), a nonprofit economic development organization. Salud is the country’s first Latina-led, start-up to manufacture and distribute high-quality, 100 percent extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) from locally sourced ingredients.

Immigrant-owned food enterprises are growing across Minnesota thanks to a series of Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) investments supporting several Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) projects in Minneapolis. With investments in a Latino-owned grocery, a cooperative grocery, a Latino restaurant, commercial kitchens, a marketing cooperative, a commissary kitchen, and a produce warehouse for small agricultural cooperatives, the LEDC Immigrant Enterprise Healthy Foods Fund is strengthening the local food system, improving health, and building wealth in low-income immigrant communities of color.

With the emphasis on community engagement in this grant program, it is important to be working with stakeholders from all parts of your community. We hope this toolkit will help with your project planning now and in the future.

Through a review of healthy food retailer program reports and interviews with program staff and experts in the field, ChangeLab Solutions has assembled a list of viable sales data tracking methods. We have assessed each method using four criteria – accuracy, cost, burden on program staff, and burden on store staff – to show each method’s strengths and weaknesses. This easy-to-use resource can help healthy retail advocates and retailers pick the best sales tracking methods for their program. 

Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI) has continued to draw national attention for how it is improving access to fresh foods in underserved communities statewide. As of September 2009, PA FFFI has committed $59.7 million in grants and loans to 78 applicants across the state, ranging in size from 1,000 to 69,000 square feet. In total, these projects are expected to bring 4,860 jobs and over 1.5 million square feet of fresh food retail across Pennsylvania.

Find tips and resources on building a policy effort.

"We know that a lot of things contribute to poor nutrition and obesity but access is a key issue," says Dr. Giridhar Mallya of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. "People don't have the ability to get healthy foods in their community at an affordable price. That makes it that much harder for them to be healthy overall." See how The Food Trust and its partners are improving food access and health in Philadelphia and around the country.

Everyone deserves access to healthy food.