Today Double Up is active in 30 states and growing. One small change we have made is that, going forward, all the in-store marketing material we provide to Arteaga's will be in Spanish. In communities that are low-wealth this is a major portion of the local food economy. Our Double Up Food Bucks program is a national model for nutrition incentives active in 28 states and growing. Our program toolkit includes all resources partners need to bring Double Up in their communitiesfrom a record keeping and evaluation frameworks to branded outreach and marketing materials. No matter the retail setting, Double Up maintains strong local sourcing and remains a win for family farmers. A Grocery Store for Every American Gets a Boost, Double Up Food Bucks 2021 Annual Impact Report, Fair Food Network Repairs the World Through Food, Oran Hesterman to Step Down from Fair Food Network, The Economic Contributions of Healthy Food Incentives. Local Agriculture
The store manager reports that he has added an entire additional day of produce delivery to meet increased demand, which is a very encouraging sign. Double Up is defined by its uniform design and brand, supporting strong customer awareness and streamlined implementation. Similarly, store sales data that we are collecting and our evaluator will be analyzing will provide another measure of our success in this regard. Double Up Food Bucks helps those in need get access to good, nutritious food. Double Up matches SNAP, or food stamps, spent on fruits and vegetables. We are in conversation with two different stores now and will make the decision based on whether we have the budget available to handle the store's expected volume, the demographics of the store's customer base and neighborhood, which POS system the store uses, and the store's commitment to the project. At Arteaga's, the primary delay was caused by IT contractors underperforming. Coupon redemption data from one of our stores, Food Bowl 99, shows that within just the first three months of the program 1,200 unique CalFresh households have redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons. We build and support nutrition incentives that expand healthy food choices and spark economic opportunity across the country. At Food Bowl 99, we had anticipated easily being able to duplicate a promotion program that was used at an independent grocery store in Michigan. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We are communicating our initial results to our project advisory committee, which includes the county Social Services Agency, county Public Health Department, Second Harvest Food Bank, and FIRST 5 Santa Clara County.
SNAP represents the largest federal investment in our food and farm systemat more than $70 billion dollars a year. Plus, Fair Food Network is on-hand to help partners get started and succeed with individualized coaching, cross-site networking, and ongoing insights from our work in Michigan and other Double Up communities. To do that we will: - Continue working with our participating grocers to promote the program within the store as much as possible. This includes cashiers at all the participating grocery stores, CalFresh benefits staff at Social Service Agency offices across the county, and local Spanish-speaking community health outreach workers (known as "promotoras") affiliated with the Food Bank. In the Michigan program, local sourcing is generating big wins for Michigan farmers: In 2019, independent grocers purchased $1.57+ million in Michigan produce during the peak growing season. We are also growing a nationwide community of practice through the Nutrition Incentive Hubsharing tools, lessons learned, and innovations to ensure Double Up remains a win for families, farmers, local markets, and grocers it serves. We have targeted our outreach efforts to the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the stores, as that is the population most likely to shop at the stores. As we receive more detailed evaluation results from our evaluator, John Snow Inc., we will begin disseminating those with potential funders and project partners. Our flagship Michigan program remains a statewide success story and proving ground for innovation. Double Up is a proven game changer in the grocery setting, helping stores distinguish themselves in the marketplace, attract new customers while encouraging loyalty. One the private sector side, two grocery companies reached out to SPUR asking how they could join the Double Up Food Bucks pilot in the past two months. New innovations seeded in Flint, Michigan are allowing shoppers to carry earned Double Up benefits with them across participating locations, plus shifting physical tokens to electronic and mobile processing.
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the coming six months, SPUR is focused on maximizing the reach and impact of the Double Up Food Bucks pilot. Cashiers at both participating Arteaga's stores ring their customers up as normal and, if the customer has CA-grown produce in their basket and pays with SNAP, a coupon is automatically generated that matches, penny-for-penny the value of CA-grown fresh produce in the basket (up to $10). Goal 4: Further refinement of bounce-back coupon incentive distribution technology. Uniform Design, Brand As a result, the project was delayed by five months. Double Up Food Bucks helps local farmers pursue their purpose as well as their profitability. - Finish conducting the customer intercept survey. 
Proving Ground Dig into our 2021 Impact Report to see how Double Up programs in 30 states stepped up to bring affordable fruits and vegetables within reach of every family while generating $50+ million in SNAP and Double Up dollars supporting local farmers and grocers. Additionally, we will be providing data to the Fair Food Network as well as USDA's evaluator, Westat. At two stores, we began with a "soft-launch", where the only marketing of the program was within the grocery stores. Goal 2: Increased sales of California grown produce at participating grocery stores, especially local produce We are collecting store sales data to measure this aspect of our program, but our evaluator has not yet completed the analysis. See the big impact were having in one community Flint, Michigan, in the wake of the citys water crisis. Double Up matches food stamp dollars spent on fresh fruits and vegetables. Our aim is to collect 200 survey responses from CalFresh customers at each store so that we have a representative sample of shoppers. We continue to partner with communities where we can make the biggest difference, applying our years of on-the-ground experience so they can hit the ground running. In 2020, sales of SNAP and Double Up topped $28 million in farmers markets and grocery stores. - Increase the number of tours we give to elected officials and policymakers ImpactsWhat was accomplished under these goals? To learn more about our Nutrition Incentive Hub or explore bringing Double Up to your community, email us at info@doubleupfoodbucks.org. Goal 3: Broader and deeper support for expanding healthy food incentives statewide at grocery stores and farmers markets among policymakers, food system stakeholders, and the general public in California. At the conclusion of our pilot, we will release the final report through SPUR's website and reach out to media to share our findings as well. Three weeks later, on February 22nd, we held a kick-off event that marked our "hard launch" at all three participating grocery stores. It wasn't until Food Bowl 99 upgraded their entire point-of-sale system that they were able to begin offering Double Up Food Bucks. At this rate, and with three stores participating (which is one less than we had originally sought to include in the pilot), we are unsure whether we will reach our goal of distributing $200,000 in incentives. Westat is conducting the official multi-site evaluation of all FINI grantees. The average value of each coupon redeemed during that time was $3.41. The third store - another Arteaga's Food Center - is in Gilroy, a small city 30 miles south of San Jose. We anticipate that the volume and average value of redemption will increase as California enters its prime growing season, during which customers will likely earn more coupons based on buying California-grown products, especially fruit. And, a county supervisor is now considering putting money from the county budget toward an extension of our project.
Over a decade ago, Fair Food Network collaborated with five Detroit, Michigan farmers markets to field test the idea of healthy food incentives in farmers markets. In 2007, before Double Up began, less than $16,000 in SNAP benefits were distributed at Michigan farmers markets. However, a month into the project, we learned that the promotion program in Michigan was not compatible with the older version of the ACS operating system used at Food Bowl 99. Sign up to get emails about our latest programs, opportunities and stories. Statewide Success We have found that signage in the store and outreach by store staff can have the biggest impact on customer awareness and utilization of Double Up Food Bucks - Continue community outreach - especially focused on community groups that work with low-income individuals and families near our targeted stores - Explore adding a fourth grocery store to the pilot project. What if we could harness even a small percentage of those dollars toward fresh, healthy, locally grown food?
The issues differed by store. Beginning this month, produce managers at all three stores are also meeting with staff from Community Alliance with Family Farmers, who are providing technical assistance to the store to increase their procurement of local and California-grown produce. We will review the survey findings and may make changes to our outreach strategy based on what obstacles respondents cite as reasons they have not used Double Up Food Bucks. Looking at the limited data that we already have, however, there are strong signs that our project has been well received and is reaching thousands of families. 2022 Fair Food Network. We don't have the same unique household data analyzed yet from the other two participating stores, but given their similar levels of CalFresh usage, we anticipate that we have already reached our goal of reaching 2,000 CalFresh families in the county. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of the Double Up Food Bucks program, SPUR staff has provided training to numerous project partners. Its a win-win-win: more healthy food for families, better business for farmers, and a boost for local economies. SPUR attempted to find other contractors who could do the work, but we were unsuccessful in doing so.
The program quickly grew statewide to 240+ farmers markets and grocery stores powered by federal, state, and philanthropic support. Outreach Efforts Description Est. Arteaga's Food Center uses NCR's ISS 45 point of sale system and, working with store management and their IT vendor, we were able to successfully design an integrated bounce-back coupon system. Diverse Outlets Fair Food Network manages a national network of projects using the Double Up Food Bucks brand and will compile our results with those of other grocery and farmers' market incentive projects. The Michigan Double Up program remains a proving ground for innovation, pushing the field forward with a focus on grocery expansion, technology innovations, and farmer-to-grocer connections. We are now actively in discussion with them regarding the feasibility of their participation.
To redeem the coupon, the cashier types in a numerical code printed onto the coupon and the discount is applied to any fresh produce items the customer has purchased. This allowed us to test systems with real-life transactions before more broadly advertising the program's availability to the public. All Rights Reserved. Local agriculture remains a key feature in the grocery setting with participating stores committing to strong local sourcing.