This report is volume 3 of USDA’s food hub technical report series and provides modules, best practices, and financial benchmarks for different stages of business development for food hubs to assess their own financial viability and assist in making strategic business decisions to maximize profits and control costs.

This new report from Feeding America provides county and congressional district data on food insecurity in America. View the accompanying interactive map.

This study by Union of Concerned Scientists is the first to show that living near healthy food retailers is associated with lower diabetes rates across all U.S. counties. The impact on diabetes rates is even more pronounced in counties with above average populations of color, which is significant given that communities of color are disproportionately affected by this tragic and costly diet-related disease.

This report is the second in a series from the Union of Concerned Scientists making the case for a national food policy in coordination with the Plate of the Union campaign. Plate of the Union is calling on the next president to reform our food system to make sure every American has equal access to healthy, affordable food that is fair to workers, good for the environment, and keeps farmers on the land.

Since 2015, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, First Nations Development Institute and the Notah Begay III Foundation have funded 38 distinct nutrition-related projects run by tribes and Native-led organizations through the Seeds of Native Health campaign, with additional partnerships with the American Heart Association and University of Minnesota and the University of Arkansas to shape funding and research priorities to support the health of Native peoples. This semi-annual report details the past six months of the initiative. 

This report reviews the literature and key information resources regarding institutional food service procurement systems, presents the potential benefits of a largescale shift among institutional procurement policies, discusses some of the existing barriers to the adoption of policies that favor regionally and/or sustainably produced food, and provides recommendations and tools for influencing institutional food procurement practices.

It aims to clarify gaps in the literature and resources— namely, information about food service management companies’ rebate pricing systems and the potential socioeconomic, environmental, health, social justice, and animal welfare-related benefits of reformed procurement policies. 

Finally, this report is intended to serve as a resource for those seeking a better understanding of institutional food service procurement policies and provide a rationale for working toward reform.

In October 2015, more than 40 public health leaders and national experts in food retail, agriculture, distribution and marketing convened in Philadelphia for Healthy Food in Small Stores: Distribution Opportunities to Improve Community Health. This national conference tackled challenges and best practices for distributing healthy food to small stores across the United States. Co-hosted by The Food Trust and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this meeting sought to build connections among experts and identify ways to overcome distribution challenges in ways that are profitable for businesses and provide better access to healthy food in stores. This report outlines the key findings, discussion themes, and other highlights from the conference. 

This report focuses on state legislation in all 50 states enacted between 2012 and 2014 that aimed to strengthen various components of local food systems (see Table 1 on page 2). The report is organized into chapters focused on six policy areas with the most state legislative action: local food system approaches; farm to school; farmers’ markets; community gardens and urban agriculture; healthy grocery retail; and food policy councils. The report was created using NCSL bill and law searches; communication with established and new local food system contacts; analysis and synthesis of existing research and case studies; and numerous interviews with state lawmakers, state agency staff, relevant nonprofits and other stakeholders. 

To achieve population-level change, practitioners must learn from earlier community-building models. Achieving results requires dismantling systems in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms reinforce and perpetuate racial inequity. This paper examines the collective impact model by drawing on lessons learned from collaborative, community-based efforts such as the Healthy Start program in Oakland, California, the national Promise Neighborhoods program, and the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color.