Healthy Food Incentive Programs Support Local Health and Local Economies

Healthy Food Incentives are Economic Development Tool

What's a tool that connects farm and food businesses to new customers; enables lower income-earning families to better afford healthy food, and efficiently leverages public and private investment to generate local economic activity?The answer is Healthy Food Incentive Programs.

'Healthy Food Incentive Programs' (sometimes called 'Nutrition Incentive Programs') have existed in the U.S. for ten to fifteen years.In a nutshell, they are small payments made to local businesses – farms, food producers and retailers – that accompany the sales those businesses make to customers shopping with funds from social safety net programs.Programs like SNAP (formerly called food stamps) and WIC (the Women, Infants and Children program) transfer funds to cardholders' accounts on a monthly basis, with which they can purchase eligible food items using a specific debit-type card.Healthy Food Incentive Programs piggyback on top of these SNAP, WIC, and other state or federal funds, but go directly to the farm or food business to pay for a portion of every item purchased. For the shopper - this discounts the cost of the fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy and other foods they are buying.This incentivizes, or enables, more healthy food consumption for the shopper. For the business owner - this creates an opportunity for new market development and customer acquisition, and directly supports sales. This incentivizes and enables more farm and local-food-related economic development.

"Healthy Food Incentive Programs...aresmall payments made to local businesses – farms, food producers and retailers – that accompany the sales those businesses make to customers shopping with funds from social safety net programs."

There are many different types of healthy food incentive programs across the U.S.They operate at a variety of scales and all along the rural-to-urban supply chain. Examples can be found at individual farm stands in small towns, networks of retail farm markets across counties or neighborhood grocery stores across cities, as well as several statewide programs in Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York. One of the original seeds of this model - 'Nutrition Incentives' – were designed as a public health intervention.Hospital systems, community-based organizations, private philanthropy, and research universities across the U.S. piloted a range of programs with names like 'Double Up Food Bucks,' 'Market Match,' 'Super SNAP,' and 'Vouchers for Veggies.' These efforts have led to a growing body of literature in the field of public health that shows the positive effects of this type of incentive program; generally, by helping families stretch limited household budgets, buy healthier options, and establish habits that support overall health and wellness.[1] Research is now demonstrating that healthy food incentive programs don’t just reduce hunger and improve nutrition at the individual or household level.They also support local agriculture and retail - and have tremendous economic return on investment. A 2021 study done by researchers from Colorado State University and UC Davis shows that for every $1 invested in a healthy food incentive program, we can expect to see up to $3 in economic activity generated as a result.[2]

"$1 invested in a healthy food incentive program... can expect to see up to $3 in economic activity generated as a result."

'Nutrition Incentives' to a dietician, public health researcher, or hospital administrator… are the same thing mechanism as 'Healthy Food Incentives' (or 'Healthy Living Supports') in the eyes of community-based organizations, frontline human service efforts, and food justice organizers. And what all those groups are talking about, by design, amounts to significant investment in local and small businesses in a food supply chain. This model may provide the most significant local economic multiplier and return on investment in more rural counties with higher numbers of farms growing fruits and vegetables for market as well as small food businesses like butchers, dairies and bakeries; and all the agriculture-adjacent businesses serving those farmers and food businesses.More research is needed to in this area.

To take one example, local businesses in Franklin County, PA have been experimenting with a healthy food incentive modelsince2016.The North Square Farmers Market, which operates seasonally in downtown Chambersburg, manages a nutrition incentiveprogram theycall 'Double Dollars.' Double Dollars at North Square Farmers Market is open to all customers who shop with SNAP, WIC, and SFMNP funds.SNAP is what used to be called food stamps.WIC is the federal Women, Infants and Children program.SFMNP is a state agricultural program for senior citizens that provides $50 vouchers to income-eligible residents who shop at Pennsylvania farm stands.

North Square Farmers Market's 'Double Dollars' program matches the first$20 any SNAP, WIC, or SFMNP shopper spends each Saturday.Customersswipe their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards for however muchfundsthey intend to use at market – and then receive twice as much marketcurrency, in the form of wooden tokens, with up to $20 of their EBT matched,every week.$20 in EBT funds can be turned into $40 in market money whichcan be spent on any fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat, dairy, and baked goods forcustomers shopping with SNAP, WIC, or SFMNP.

Where does the money come from? To continue with our example, North Square Farmers Market's'Double Dollars' effort waspilotedin2016 bycommunity-based nonprofit, South Central Community Action Programs, and initially funded by a grant from a localhospitalendowment. Small fundraising events and individual donors sustained the program for years after that. In 2023 anotherlocalnonprofit has found public health related grant funding to enable the market to expand this promising program. Regionallyandnationally,many healthcaresystems, health insurance providers, and private health foundations fund this model of program. Several legislatures are considering statewide funding for such programs, in Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts most notably. There is also a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant program, created by the 2014 Farm Bill and expanded in 2018, with annual funding of approximately $50 million.The purpose of this 'Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program' is to support healthy food incentive programs across the country, improve the health and nutrition of participatinghouseholds, as well as to collect data to identify and improve best practices… to support both local health and economic investment.[3]

For more information about healthy food incentive programs, learning resources, and the best practices shared by Gus Schumacher grant-funded projects from the past eight years, visit Nutrition Incentive Hub. To see this type of program in action locally, stop by the North Square Farmers Market in downtown Chambersburg any Saturday morning and visit the Market Info Booth.Your local farmers market, retail farm stand, or neighborhood grocery store might very well have a program of this design in operation already too – or they could. Healthy food incentive programs are a nationally recognized household nutrition intervention, community food security support, and local economic development powerhouse.

[1] Hilary Hoynes, Diane Schanzenbach, Douglas Almond, "Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net," American Economic Review 106, no. 4 (2016): 903-34.

[2] Thilmany D, Baumann A, Love E, Jablonski Becca BR. January 2021.The Economic Contributions of Healthy Food Incentives.

[3] NIFA: Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program