A coalition of grocers, major banks, health care entities and research experts have joined together in a public-private initiative that aims to increase access to healthy, affordable food in underserved communities, spur economic development, and inspire innovation in healthy food retailing.
First Lady Michelle Obama announced the California FreshWorks Fund (CAFWF) last week at a ceremony at the White House.
A project of The California Endowment, FreshWorks is a $200 million public-private partnership loan fund modeled after the successful Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative and developed to align with the National Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI).
The fund is intended to make communities across California healthier by working directly with grocers on developing new and improved places to buy nutritious food. According to CAFWF partners, the new stores are expected to create or retain around 6000 jobs in California.
The fund will provide financing to grocery stores and other healthy food retailers and distributors who meet a subset of skillfully developed program guidelines designed to move healthy food retailing forward in an affordable and accessible way and prioritize healthy choices.
CAFWF program guidelines are different from and go further than other previous efforts. For example: Projects will get priority points if they don’t sell cigarettes, have a higher proportion of healthy food, eliminate junk food aisles, etc.
Participants include the California Grocers Association, Unified Grocers, Kaiser Permanente, Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and numerous other public, private and non-profit organizations.
"Independent grocers by nature are entrepreneurial and opportunistic and, as a group, have always been willing to open neighborhood-oriented grocery stores in underserved communities that have been passed over by the large chains," says Al Plamann, CEO of Unified Grocers, a retailer-owned wholesale grocery distributor that supplies independent retailers throughout the western US.
"While everyone agrees that it will take many years to provide all Californians with easy access to healthy, affordable foods, FreshWorks is positioned to make significant progress in the years ahead and, in partnership with strong independent grocers, I am confident that the program will be one of the most successful in the country," he adds.
Seed-stage financing from The California Endowment included a $30 million mission-related investment on the debt side and a $3 million grant. In a matter of months the fund grew to $200 million committed from prominent investors like NCB, Kaiser Permanente, JP Morgan Chase, and others.
The First Lady celebrated the launch of the fund by inviting partners involved in the initiative to the White House for a healthy foods summit with corporate and industry leaders.
For as little as $20, anyone can invest online in the fund through Calvert, a pioneer in social investing:
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