Publications
Healthy Food Access
The Center for Healthy Food Access is a national collaborative effort working to increase access to and demand for healthy foods and beverages in underserved urban and rural communities. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Food Trust launched The Center in a collective effort to improve people’s health and quality of life. Now more than ever, stakeholders need to strengthen coalitions to demonstrate support for and communicate the benefits of programs and policies working to ensure that a culture of health in a diverse society lasts for generations to come.
Targeted advocacy efforts are leading to state and local policy changes that encourage the development of supermarkets and other healthy food retail in lower-income, underserved communities. The Food Trust has a phased approach to developing and advancing state and local policies that address the challenges associated with grocery retail development.
In 2015, Cuyahoga County was ranked 65th (out of 88 Ohio counties) in overall health outcomes. This report is the result of a one-year assessment and planning project that identifies opportunities to support local efforts and achieve a more comprehensive and collaborative approach to food access in Cleveland – Cuyahoga County.
Healthy Food Access in Pennsylvania:
Building on Success, Reinvesting in Communities, Creating Jobs
Despite the positive impact of the FFFI, inequitable access to healthy food retail continues to have negative effects on Pennsylvanians: Many lower-income communities across the commonwealth have both poor access to healthy food and high rates of diet-related death. The time has come for Pennsylvania to reinvest in the FFFI.
The Healthy Food Financing Handbook: From Advocacy to Implementation
This handbook is a resource for advocates at public health and community and economic development organizations working to increase the availability of nutritious foods and revitalize their neighborhoods. It provides a roadmap for advocacy and implementation of a healthy food financing initiative to encourage food retail in underserved regions.
Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters
A new joint report by The Food Trust and PolicyLink provides an up-to-date review of the research. Three years since our 2010 report, The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters, the large volume of new research demonstrates that improving healthy food access in low-income communities and communities of color continues to be an urgent need.
The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters
This literature review is the most comprehensive bibliography of studies of healthy food access and its impacts – 132 studies conducted in the United States in the past 20 years, including three nationwide analyses and geographically focused reports covering 22 states. For more recent research see the Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters report.
Food for Every Child: The Need for Healthy Food Financing in Virginia
A report by The Food Trust documenting need for a Healthy Food Financing Initiative in Virginia to ensure that all communities across the commonwealth have access to healthy and affordable food.
Food for Every Child: The Need for Healthy Food Financing in Alabama
A report by The Food Trust and VOICES for Alabama's Children documenting need for a Healthy Food Finanicing Initiative in Alabama to ensure that all children and their families live in communities have access to healthy and affordable food.
Food for Every Child: The Need for Healthy Food Financing in Michigan
A report by The Food Trust documenting need for more healthy food retail in Michigan to ensure that all children and their families live in communities have access to healthy and affordable food.
Food for Every Child: The Need for Healthy Food Retail in the Greater Dallas Area
A report by The Food Trust and CHILDREN AT RISK documenting need for more healthy food retail in the Greater Dallas area to ensure that all children and their families live in communities have access to healthy and affordable food.
Supporting Grocery Development in Ohio
The Ohio Healthy Food Financing Task Force's recommendations for developing healthy, affordable food retail in underserved communities across the state of Ohio.
Food for Every Child: The Need for Healthy Food Financing in Ohio
A report by The Food Trust documenting the need for more supermarkets and fresh food resources in Ohio to ensure that all children and their families live in communities have access to healthy and affordable food.
Roadmap for Encouraging Grocery Development in Houston and Texas
The Houston Grocery Access Task Force's recommendations for developing healthy, affordable food retail in underserved communities in Houston and across the state of Texas.
Food for Every Child: The Need for More Supermarkets in Tennessee
A report by The Food Trust documenting the need for more supermarkets and fresh food resources in Tennessee to ensure that all children and their families live in communities have access to healthy and affordable food.
Stimulating Supermarket Development in Maryland
The Maryland Fresh Food Retail Task Force's policy recommendations for developing healthy, affordable food retail in underserved communities throughout Maryland.
Building Healthy Communities: Expanding Access to Fresh Food Retail
The New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee's recommendations for developing healthy, affordable food retail in underserved communities in New Orleans.
Supermarket Strategies to Encourage Healthy Eating
This toolkit provides resources for supermarket-based strategies to encourage healthy eating, including in-store marketing, nutrition education, tasting events, supermarket tours, community events and nutrition classes, and outreach to the Food Stamp/SNAP population.
A Healthier Future for Miami-Dade County
This report, by The Food Trust, documents the uneven distribution of supermarket access throughout Miami-Dade County and identifies areas in greatest need of healthy food retail development.
Harnessing the Power of Supermarkets to Help Reverse Childhood Obesity
A ground breaking conference of more than 60 public health leaders, food retailers, food manufacturers, consumer product designers and marketers met to discuss how to make it easier for parents, caregivers and youths to select and purchase healthier foods in grocery stores.
Schools
Get HYPE Philly!: A Youth-Led Movement to Build a Healthier Philadelphia
Get HYPE Philly! is a high-energy, youth-focused collective impact initiative promoting positive youth development in Philadelphia. For more information on how to become an Advisory Board member, connect youth to opportunities or find out how your organization can get involved, visit gethypephilly.org.
Growing Healthy Communities: The Food Trust's Approach to Nutrition Education
Through a community-based approach to nutrition education and healthy food environments, The Food Trust’s PEACH (People Eating and Cooking Healthy) program works to improve food access and teach lifelong skills in lower-income communities, empowering SNAP-eligible individuals, families, schools and communities to live a healthy life.
Starting in 2001, The Food Trust, Temple University and the CDC convened a citywide Comprehensive School Nutrition Policy Task Force to develop and evaluate programs to fight obesity among urban youth. This Toolkit was written to share our successes with other schools, parents, policymakers and community groups who are interested in improving the school environment to help prevent childhood obesity.
The Preschool Initiative: Building a Healthy Foundation for Life
This toolkit is designed to be a resource for preschool teachers, teachers’ aides and preschool center administrators interested in developing and providing a nutrition and physical activity program like the Preschool Initiative in their centers. It offers curriculum guidelines for success and encourage centers to tailor the program to its own needs.
The Kindergarten Initiative: A Healthy Start to a Healthy Life
This is the story of how The Food Trust created the Kindergarten Initiative, a program that promotes healthy eating through education, snacks from local farms, parent involvement and community support. For teachers, policymakers and parents searching for ways to teach children about making nutritious food choices, this toolkit will be a valuable resource. The Kindergarten Initiative is a practice-based intervention recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Corner Stores
Heart Smarts: Partnering With Corner Stores to Improve Community Health
With the growth of healthy corner store initiatives across the country, combined with increased interest from health care institutions to provide neighborhood-based preventive health services, the Heart Smarts model can link primary care to public health with a focus on the community.
Heart Smarts: 8 Lessons to Educate Shoppers on Healthy Eating Choices
The Healthy Corner Store Initiative’s Heart Smarts program was built to create a meaningful connection between corner stores and the communities they serve. This booklet, developed by The Food Trust, includes eight interactive nutrition education lessons with accompanying visuals for lessons in corner stores. Click here for more information or to order copies.
Working to increase healthier food options throughout the retail spectrum—from grocery stores to corner stores—will have a robust impact on the food access landscape throughout New Jersey.
Healthy Corner Store Initiative Overview
The Healthy Corner Store Initiative is a successful model for increasing the availability of healthy food in corner stores by identifying a continuum of readiness for store changes. The program builds relationships with store owners and asks them to make gradual changes with support and training. With this assistance, store owners are willing to sell healthy products and believe these changes can be sustainable and profitable.
Healthy Corner Store Initiative, 2013-2014
In partnership with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Get Healthy Philly, The Food Trust has grown the Healthy Corner Store Initiative from a small pilot program to a citywide network, introducing an array of programs to provide training, technical assistance and infrastructure change to increase healthy food inventory and provide consumer education in corner stores.
Healthier Corner Stores: Positive Impacts, Profitable Changes
Corner stores — often thought of as a source of unhealthy foods — can be key partners in the effort to improve access to healthy, affordable foods. Evaluation by The Food Trust and Econsult Corporation has shown that the corner stores in Phialdelphia that have introduced healthier produces to store shelves have resulted in healthier choices, healthier businesses and healthier communities.
Healthy Corner Store Initiative Sell Healthy Guide
This guide will help corner store owners learn how to sell healthy foods, increase sales and attract more customers through:
--Healthy product selection
--Marketing, pricing and display
--Equipment and refrigeration
Philadelphia's Healthy Corner Stores, 2010-2012
This report reviews the Healthy Corner Store Initiative, a successful model for increasing the availability of healthy food in corner stores. The Healthy Corner Store Initiative builds relationships with store owners and asks them to make gradual changes with support and training. With this assistance, store owners are willing to sell healthy products and believe these changes can be sustainable and profitable.
Other
5 Years of Night Market Philadelphia
In 2010, The Food Trust created Night Market Philadelphia to bring communities together and celebrate the joy of food. Over the past five years, Night Market has become an institution by enlivening communities, empowering entrepreneurs and creating culinary destinations.
Healthy Food in Small Stores: Strategies to Close the Distribution Gap in Underserved Communities
In October 2015, more than 40 public health leaders and national experts in food retail, agriculture, distribution and marketing convened in Philadelphia for Healthy Food in Small Stores: Distribution Opportunities to Improve Community Health. Co-hosted by The Food Trust and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this meeting sought to build connections among experts and identify ways to overcome distribution challenges in ways that are profitable for businesses and provide better access to healthy food in stores.
Fostering Community Benefits: How Food Access Nonprofits and Hospitals Can Work Together to Promote Wellness
In 2012 Lankenau Medical Center, part of Main Line Health, and The Food Trust, began developing a multi-pronged partnership to help address community health needs identified in the hospital’s Community Health Needs Assessment.
Understanding the Role of Community Development Finance in Improving Access to Healthy Food
ChangeLab Solutions, in collaboration with The Food Trust, developed this guide to discuss CDFIs as an alternative to conventional lending for financing supermarkets and other small businesses.
A report developed with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help create healthier food environments through healthy concessions. This approach closely aligns with Institute of Medicine recommendations to accelerate progress in addressing the obesity epidemic by working to create environments where healthy food and beverage options are the easy choice.
Creating Healthy Concessions: A Resource Guide
This guidebook, developed in partnership with The Fairmount Park Conservancy, is designed to be a resource for community groups, local and state officials, nonprofit organizations and other partner agencies interested in bringing healthy food resources to their communities, improving their local parks and building community capacity.
Campbell Healthy Communities Annual Report
The Food Trust evaluated the Campbell Soup Company 's Healthy Communities initiative to reduce childhood obesity and hunger in Camden, New Jersey. The Food Trust also partners with the Campbell Soup Company to provide nutrition education and increase healthy food choices at corner stores in Camden.
Greater Philadelphia & the Farm Bill
With the reauthorization of the next federal Farm Bill underway, The Food Trust has connected with national and local partners to identify the opportunities through which this critical legislation can and will benefit Greater Philadelphia's regional food network for years to come.
20 years of working together to ensure that everyone has access to healthy and affordable food.
