The Limited Access to Healthy Foods Work Group identified the following priorities for action planning related to equitable access to food nutrition services, supporting the state’s food system, and access to school meals.

• Enhance how children and families access programs supporting their well-being, including SNAP, WIC, CACFP, Medicaid, and NCCARE360 through better data and analysis, infrastructure, and integration
• Provide financial incentives such as “Double Up Food Bucks” and Produce Prescriptions for SNAP/ FNS recipients for purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables from grocery stores and farmers markets
• Continue, expand, and institutionalize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) online purchasing pilot
• Support equitable, food-oriented development that drives economic growth in low-income and historically marginalized communities
• Support regional food hubs connecting local farmers, growers, producers, and ranchers with expanded market opportunities and the community to improved access to local, nutritious food
• Implement competitive pricing for healthy foods
• Collaborate with community partners to provide nutritious options at food banks and pantries and soup kitchens
• Support farmers’ markets and enable Electronic Benefit Transfer payment at farmers’ markets
• Support, promote, and encourage participation in the School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs

The Limited Access to Healthy Foods Work Group identified the following potential short-term and long-term strategies to move the priorities forward.

• Priority: Enhance how children and families access programs supporting their well-being, including SNAP, WIC, CACFP, Medicaid, and NCCARE360 through better data and analysis, infrastructure, and integration
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Refer to NCDHHS State Action Plan for Nutrition Security: 2023-2024
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Utilize GIS to get very granular data to identify gaps in services.
    • State Health Center for Food Access.
• Priority: Provide financial incentives such as “Double Up Food Bucks” and Produce Prescriptions for SNAP/ FNS recipients for purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables from grocery stores and farmers markets
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Farmers Market Network would like to pursue state funding.
    • Medicaid transformation/ Healthy Opportunities Pilots providing vouchers for fruits and vegetables.
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Get the double up and bonus purchase programs into a system that works directly with EBT payment.
• Priority: Continue, expand, and institutionalize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) online purchasing pilot
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Online systems to meet consumers’ needs and addressing access issues, including barriers to access.
• Priority: Support equitable, food-oriented development that drives economic growth in low-income and historically marginalized communities
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Work force development and programs related to related to food business and distribution.
    • Food recovery and regulatory efforts.
    • Commercial shared-use kitchen space.
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Cooperative Extension- HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), GAP (Good Agricultural Practices), food processing
• Priority: Support regional food hubs connecting local farmers, growers, producers, and ranchers with expanded market opportunities and the community to improved access to local, nutritious food
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Build capacity in communities for food processing.
    • Provide training for HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) and GAP (Good Agricultural Practices); coordinate efforts of small business centers (SBCs) and food training.
    • Commercial shared-use kitchen space.
    • NC-NIK: North Carolina Network of Incubator Kitchens
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Ready sources of funding, refer to Policy Effort to Watch: South Carolina Healthy Food Financing Initiative: https://www.policylink.org/policy-efforts-and-impacts/state-and-local/south-carolina.
• Priority: Implement competitive pricing for healthy foods
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Dialogue with the retail merchants to learn what motivates them through listening sessions.
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Expand the audiences that can receive food, including expanding eligibility for  SNAP, WIC, Healthy Opportunities  Pilots (HOP), etc.
• Priority: Collaborate with community partners to provide nutritious options at food banks and pantries and soup kitchens
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Working partners together to expand and target the work. ACCESS for patrons to pick up....then how to use it. Assessing how many pantries are tied to a local food bank system, connecting them.
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Food safety concerns (sell by and use by dates)
• Priority: Support farmers’ markets and enable Electronic Benefit Transfer payment at farmers’ markets
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Include this as part of the following priority, as funding flow through may be easier to track.
      • Priority: Provide financial incentives such as “Double Up Food Bucks” for SNAP/ FNS recipients for purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables from grocery stores and farmers markets
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Access to broadband for pop-ups/ farmers markets. Pop-ups/ farmers markets need Broadband connectivity.
• Priority: Support, promote, and encourage participation in the School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs
  • Short-Term Strategies:
    • Support advocacy efforts for Free School Meals for All.
    • Learn what children/ students WILL eat.
    • Provide culturally appropriate menus.
  • Long-term Strategies:
    • Consideration of a quality review of meals.
    • Support Farm to School initiatives.

May 15, 2023, 1:00 to 3:00 pm, Work Group Meeting

Co-Leads: Alice Ammerman and Jayne McBurney; Absent: Tish Singletary and Brandon Teal

Attendees: Amanda Hege, Courtney Ramsey-Coleman, Diane Beth, Gideon Adams, Jennifer Bedrosian, Karen Stanley, Konnie Tran, Morgan Cooper

Discussion:

• Reviewed policy rankings. The top nine policies were as follows:

1. Enhance how children and families access programs supporting their well-being, including SNAP, WIC, CACFP, Medicaid, NCCARE360 through better data and analysis, infrastructure, and integration    
2. Provide financial incentives such as “Double Up Food Bucks” for SNAP/ FNS recipients for purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables from grocery stores and farmers markets
3. Continue, expand, and institutionalize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) online purchasing pilot
4. Support equitable, food-oriented development that drives economic growth in low-income and historically marginalized communities 
5. Support regional food hubs connecting local farmers/growers/producers/ranchers with expanded market opportunities and the community to improved access to local, nutritious food         
6. Implement competitive pricing for healthy foods
7. Collaborate with community partners to provide nutritious options at food banks and pantries and soup kitchens    
8. Support farmers’ markets and enable Electronic Benefit Transfer payment at farmers’ markets         
9. Support, promote and encourage participation in the School Breakfast and National School Lunch Programs 

• Discussed the following questions for each of the nine top policy priorities. The responses from the asset mapping worksheet and meeting chat are included after the notes.
  • What are recommendations for lead agencies for this policy work?
  • What would be short-term strategies to move this policy forward?
  • What would be long-term strategies to move this policy forward?
  • What are additional assets needed?
  • What sources of funding are and/or may be available for this policy initiative?
• Next steps were for work group members to add any additional responses to the asset mapping questions. The Co-Leads will meet to review the responses to discuss strategies and action planning.

January 9, 2023, 1:00 to 3:00 pm, Work Group Meeting

Co-Leads: Alice Ammerman, Brandon Teal, Jayne McBurney, and Tish Singletary

Attendees: Amanda Hege, Courtney Ramsey-Coleman, Diane Beth, Gideon Adams, Karen Stanley, Morgan Cooper, Nicole Johnson, Paula Swepson-Avery, Renee Harvey, Robyn Stout

Discussion:

• Provided a high-level overview of the priority strategies discussed at the previous work group meeting. The priority strategies were:
  • Continue, expand, and institutionalize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) online purchasing pilot
  • Establish a public-private fund for stimulating the development/ renovation/expansion of new and existing community-supported venues
  • Implement competitive pricing for healthy foods
  • Implement school breakfast programs and school fruit and vegetable gardens
  • Provide technical assistance for grants that provide financial incentives such as “Double Up Food Bucks” for SNAP/ FNS recipients for purchasing fresh fruit and vegetables from grocery stores and farmers markets
  • Support farmers’ efforts to maintain active crop production in areas with high land prices
  • Support regional food hubs in adopting solid business models, with built-in reliance on subject matter experts
• Discussed the two policies that were not reviewed during the previous work group meeting.
  • Support farmers’ efforts to maintain active crop production in areas with high land price
    • Recommendations: Cooperative Extension should be engaged to elevate this strategy. Define “at-risk agriculture land.” Change this policy to two policies. Support farm transition.
    • Potential Policy Revisions: Support farmers' efforts to maintain active crop production for financial sustainability. Promote preservation of arable land/resources to promote agricultural diversity.
• Support regional food hubs in adopting solid business models, with built-in reliance on subject matter experts
  • Recommendations: Be clear what support means. Think about verbiage in strategies. Include monetary, policy, and outreach recommendations for each strategy
  • Potential Policy Revisions: Prioritize procurement from local farmers and local food hubs to sustain markets for regional food hubs
• Reviewed next steps were to wordsmith/ revise the wording of the strategies/ polices, rank the strategies/ policies, and share recommendations. The next Limited Access to Healthy Foods Work Group meeting will be on Monday, May 15, 2023, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

November 1, 2022, 1:00 to 3:00 pm, Work Group Meeting

Co-Leads: Alice Ammerman, Brandon Teal, Jayne McBurney, and Tish Singletary

Attendees: Amanda Hege, Dawn Daly Mack, Gideon Adams, Jennifer Bailey, Konnie Tran, Morgan Cooper, Renee Harvey, Robyn Stout, Tracey Bates

Discussion:

• Reviewed the purpose of the meeting was to review the proposed policy initiatives/ strategies to prioritize them, discuss what others are doing in this space, and revise and add to the policies as needed.
• Provided an overview of the NC SHIP Community Council and Healthy North Carolina 2030.
• Reviewed and discussed the policy initiatives for Limited Access to Healthy Food. For each of the proposed policy initiatives, the work group had in-depth discussions about current related programs, strategies, and organizations working in those spaces. 
• Planned for work group members to rank each of the proposed policy initiatives in follow-up to the meeting. The next meeting for the Limited Access to Healthy Food Work Group is Monday, January 9, 2023, 1:00 to 3:00 pm. 

August 9, 2022, 9:00 to 11:00 am, Co-Lead Planning Meeting

Co-Leads: Alice Ammerman, Jayne McBurney, Tish Singletary, and Brandon Teal (absent)

Discussion:

• Discussed and added to the list of potential work group members.
• Reviewed proposed policy initiatives from the NC SHIP for Indicator 8: Limited Access to Healthy Food and identified process for prioritization.
• Set next work group meeting dates.