Healthy food marketing efforts have integrated approaches used by the grocery industry with academic research to create promising and feasible practices that make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Hear from experts about how these efforts, commonly referred to as in-store marketing strategies, are changing consumer behavior in grocery stores and supermarkets.

This webinar features the latest evidence from the field, and explore how new research is changing how the public purchases nutritious food. Healthy food marketing efforts are generating healthy outcomes for retailers and for consumers.

Too many residents of bi-state Kansas City lack sufficient access to healthy, affordable food. Despite being in the heart of one of the richest agricultural regions in the nation, bi-state Kansas City is home to many communities without supermarkets, grocery stores and other retailers of healthy food. Limited access to nutritious food is an issue in specific neighborhoods, such as Douglas Sumner in Kansas City, Kansas, and Ivanhoe and Marlborough in Kansas City, Missouri. To address these concerns, the Kansas City Grocery Access Task Force was convened by KC Healthy Kids, IFF and The Food Trust. The task force is a cohort of leaders from the grocery industry, state and local governments, as well as the community and economic development, public health and civic sectors. The task force developed nine recommendations for state and local public policies that will improve the availability of healthy, affordable food in underserved areas through the development of supermarkets and grocery stores.

Rural grocery stores anchor a community by supplying fresh foods and staples; creating local jobs; attracting complementary businesses; and increasing the tax base. Today they are under siege because of competition with “big box” stores for customers; high energy costs, the inability to buy products in small quantities; elderly owners with no succession plans, and low population density. This webinar explores the unique challenges that rural grocers face and discuss innovative solutions to improving access to healthy foods in rural America.

The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program incentivizes private investment in low-income communities by permitting individual and corporate investors to receive a tax credit against their federal income tax return in exchange for making equity investments in specialized financial institutions called Community Development Entities (CDEs). The NMTC program has a proven track record in expanding access to healthy foods by encouraging private sector investment in underserved communities. This webinar serves as an introduction to a complex financing tool and explores some examples of how NMTCs are being used to finance a variety of projects designed to improve access to healthy foods.

New research in a joint report by PolicyLink and The Food Trust, Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters: A Review of the Research, underscores healthy food access as the foundation necessary for reaping the positive benefits associated with healthy food. The research reveals that improving healthy food access in low-income communities and communities of color continues to be an urgent need with nearly 30 million people living in low-income areas with limited access to supermarkets. The webinar features report authors along with a local government official. Speakers discuss how findings from the new report can be used to expand healthy food access in communities across the country.

"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. 

Whether you are an investor or lender considering investing in a food hub, a food hub operator undertaking business planning, or a policymaker looking to better understand the food hub sector, Wholesome Wave’s Food Hub Business Assessment Toolkit provides you with the tools to evaluate a food hub business’ readiness for investment. The Toolkit provides a framework for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of food hubs in the areas of business model and strategy, impact potential, market overview, marketing and sales, operations, organization and management, risk mitigation, technology and systems, and finance.