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Supermarket Campaign
The Food Trust’s Supermarket Campaign seeks to improve access to supermarkets in underserved communities through leveraging economic development resources, active public/private partnerships, research, and policy advocacy to address the negative impacts related to the lack of food retail choices in communities across the country.
RECENT NEWS
Recommendations to Increase Access to Affordable, Nutritious Food in New Orleans: The Food Trust, as a member of the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee, co-authored a report offering 10 recommendations for bringing more supermarkets to New Orleans.
Supermarket Campaign Awarded for its Excellence: The Fresh Food Financing Initiative has been recognized nationally for its innovative approach to addressing the question of food access. The program has been commended by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the National Governor's Association, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Read More...
Fresh Food Financing Initiative: Entering its fourth year, the Fresh Food Financing Initiative has changed the landscape for supermarket development in Pennsylvania by providing dedicated gap-financing for supermarket project in underserved communities through the state. Read More…
Philadelphia ’s New Markets: Ripe Opportunity for Retailers: The third report from our Food for Every Child series examines the food retail market in Philadelphia and its communities by utilizing alternative economic metrics that capture the nuances of the Philadelphia retail marketplace and state the case for a retail renaissance in Philadelphia. Read More…
Food Geography: How Food Access Affects Diet and Health: A companion piece to the New Market’s report, this brief analyzes disparities in food access within Philadelphia targeting consumption rates and quality of fruits and vegetables, as well as need to travel to obtain fresh groceries. Read More…
Healthy Corner Stores Initiative: This exciting new initiative focuses on expanding economic opportunity for owners of corner stores by increasing the capacity of store owners to stock and merchandize healthy products, creating a mutually beneficial situation for owners, customers, and neighborhoods. Read More…
Fresh Food Financing Initiative Awarded For Its Innovation
The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at
county and city levels, are chosen for their: novelty and creativity, effectiveness at addressing significant issues and
problems and ability to be replicated by other jurisdictions. The programs represent governments’ best efforts
in the areas of education and training, criminal justice and public safety, economic and community
development, housing, health and social services, management, transportation, public works and environment.
In addition, The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) recognized the Fresh Food Financing Initiative, administered in part by The Food Trust, as one of three innovative state-run programs throughout the country which promotes active living and providing access to healthy foods.
Most recently the EPA recognized the Fresh Food Financing Initiative with an National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. FFFI won the Smart Growth award in the policy and regulation category.
Follow the links to find a case study examining the Fresh Food Financing Initiative as well as a report, Creating Healthy States: Action by Governors, which identifies FFFI as a model program for the NGA's Healthy America Platform.
Fresh Food Financing Initiative
>Download Program Guidelines and Application
The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI) is an innovative program that works to increase the number of supermarkets or other grocery stores in under-served communities across Pennsylvania. The initiative serves the financing needs of supermarket operators that plan to operate in these under-served communities where infrastructure costs and credit needs cannot be filled solely by conventional financial institutions.
The Food Trust, the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition (GPUAC), and The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) have formed a public-private partnership to support the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, working with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The State has appropriated $30 million for this initiative and TRF is leveraging this funding with an additional $90 million to form an $120 million multi-faceted pool that will be a one-stop-shop for financing fresh food retailers in under-served areas. The matching $90 million will come from private sources as well as TRF’s New Markets Tax Credits allocation.
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Left: Shopper at First Oriental Market in South Philadelphia
Right: Shareholders at Progress Plaza after demolition of vacant supermarket. A new Fresh Grocer is slated to open in 2009.
To date, FFFI has committed resources to 52 supermarket projects in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Eddystone, Gettysburg, and other cities and towns across Pennsylvania.
Supermarkets seeking to develop new stores in under-served communities will now be able to take advantage of both the Fresh Food Financing Initiative and the $100 million available through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s First Industries program.
For more information on the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, please call Tracey Giang at The Food Trust at 215-575-0444 or email tgiang@thefoodtrust.org.
< Learn more about FFFI-funded projects.
Ripe Opportunities Abound For Supermarkets in Philadelphia
> download Philadelphia’s New Markets report
Neighborhoods in Philadelphia have as much as $205 million in unmet food retail demand. With decreasing crime rates and an improved infrastructure, Philadelphia neighborhoods can support supermarkets that will bring much needed fresh food into communities.
The third report released in the Food for Every Child series, Philadelphia’s New Markets: Ripe Opportunities for Retailers, demonstrates that Philadelphia’s neighborhoods can support new supermarkets. The analytical techniques used in this market study provide a comprehensive view of retail opportunity in the Philadelphia market, combining conventional metrics with an analytical methodology that captures urban market trends by examining on-the-ground information (such as community surveys), retail business point data, and local datasets (for example, from city agencies). This study utilizes two powerful metrics to reveal the untapped strength of inner-city markets: concentration of buying power and retail float.
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Among the findings in the report are that each of Philadelphia’s inner city communities contain at least $50 million in retail buying power per square mile; and dollars that could be spent on food are leaving neighborhoods. Residents of Olney alone are currently spending $205 million annually on food outside of their neighborhood. With mounting evidence that supermarket access improves diet and reduces the risk of developing diet-related diseases such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, the time is right for supermarkets to set up shop in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.
How Food Access Affects Health
> download Food Geography report
In order to investigate the extent of access to food disparities within Philadelphia, The Food Trust, in partnership with the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC), has released Food Geography: How Food Access Affects Diet and Health.
Food Geography analyzes data from PHMC's Community Health Data Base 2004 Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey to describe the nature of the problem in Philadelphia. Conducted in the summer of 2004, this telephone survey of more than 10,000 households in the region examines access to food among residents in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties.
Information regarding consumption of fruits and vegetables, perceptions of grocery quality and required travel to reach a supermarket is examined by age, race, poverty status, health status and by the Philadelphia’s twelve Planning Analysis Sections (PAS) designations.
Healthy Corner Store Initiative
The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative opens the door for corner store owners to apply for funds through the Fresh Food Financing Initiative to purchase or upgrade refrigeration systems for fruits and vegetables. The technical assistance and access to financing provided by the Healthy Corner Store Initiative builds opportunities for small business owners and create jobs for local residents, thus benefiting the local economies of the target communities and the city of Philadelphia as a whole. The program will also increase community access to fresh, nutritious, low-cost food items that are cost-prohibitive for smaller stores to stock due to their limited purchasing power.
For more information about this initiative, please contact James Johnson-Piett at The Food Trust at 215.775.0444 or jjpiett@thefoodtrust.org
Background on The Food Trust's Supermarket Campaign
< download The Need for More Supermarkets report
< download Stimulating Supermarket Development report
Philadelphia is not exceptional in terms of the characteristics or poverty status of its residents when compared to other large urban areas, yet it has the second lowest number of supermarkets per capita of major cities in the nation. There are large areas of Philadelphia with few supermarkets, and many neighborhoods where none exist. This uneven distribution of food in Philadelphia disproportionately affects large numbers of low-income people.
In 2001, The Food Trust released a report, The Need for More Supermarkets, which show ed that poor supermarket access in Philadelphia is linked to the high incidence of diet-related diseases in many low-income neighborhoods.
Following the release of the Need for More Supermarkets report, City Councilor Blondell Reynolds Brown directed The Food Trust to convene a Food Marketing Task Force to produce a report recommending policy changes to improve the availability of affordable, nutritious food in Philadelphia. The Food Marketing Task Force is composed of more than 40 experts from city government, the supermarket industry, and the civic sector. The Food Marketing Task Force was chaired by Christine James-Brown, President and CEO of the United Way International, and Walter Rubel, Director, Government and Community Affairs of Acme Markets.
In the summer of 2004, The Food Marketing Task Force released the second in the Food for Every Child series: Stimulating Supermarket Development: A New Day for Philadelphia, with ten recommendations to increase the number of supermarkets in Philadelphia’s under-served communities. These policy changes would create a more positive climate for supermarket development and create jobs, prevent diet-related disease, and contribute to the revitalization of Philadelphia.
Successful advocacy by members of the Food Marketing Task Force combined with the leadership of State Representative Dwight Evans resulted in the creation of the Fresh Food Financing Initiative in 2004.