When the small “farmers market” style store that served the Oxford, Mississippi community for over 30 years closed in 2016, the neighborhood was left with limited access to fresh foods. Chicory Market, a full-service community grocery store, took over the space in 2017.
Across the country, the shameful reality of limited access to healthy food plagues historically marginalized communities. It is an issue that is rooted in discriminatory policies and disinvestment, and is reflected in the 27.6 million people living in places with inequitable and inadequate access to healthy food, according to our research on supermarket access disparities in the contiguous United States. In cities like Atlanta, supermarket development has notoriously followed patterns of redlining, a discriminatory lending practice beginning in the 1930s, as retailers concentrated development in wealthy, white communities while avoiding low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
MARSH Grocery Cooperative will sell locally grown produce, bulk dry goods and other organic food on a sliding scale, based on what each customer can afford. The nonprofit’s employees are also partial owners who live in the surrounding neighborhood and help manage the organization.
Multiple speakers at the groundbreaking spoke about Peathon Massey, a 70-year Flint resident who wanted to see the opening of the city’s first co-op grocery store but died shortly before its opening at age 93.
The California Indian Museum and Cultural Center is using a significant USDA grant to reconnect these tribal community members to traditional knowledge and practices, including foodways.
With new funding, African Economic Development Solutions hopes to foster culture and community with a Pan-African immigrant cooperative market.
While grocers struggle amid consolidations, a coalition supports innovative ways to deliver fresh food to underserved rural areas.
“The context for why there are food access gaps is really different between rural Alaska and the west side of Chicago, but HFFI is a very flexible tool.” says program director Molly Hartman.
A program designed to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to Austin through weekend popup shops recently received a federal grant that could help it become a more permanent presence in the community. The Austin Grocery Initiative, which is a collaboration between Forty Acres Fresh Market and the Westside Health Authority, received $185,000 in financial assistance from Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a new grants program through the United States Department of Agriculture. The Austin Grocery Initiative was one of 23 grantees awarded financial and technical assistance grants.
Forty million Americans still live without easy access to fresh and healthy food options. But not if the Healthy Food Financing Initiative(HFFI), which provides financial assistance and technical assistance to food access projects, has anything to say about it. Set into motion by the Agricultural Act of 2014, the HFFI is a public-private partnership headed by Reinvestment Fund on behalf of USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).