Reinvestment Fund, in its capacity as National Fund Manager for the Healthy Food Financing Initiative at USDA Rural Business-Cooperative Service, requests applications for America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund (HFFI FARE Fund) for the 2024-2025 funding cycle.
Donor Name: Reinvestment Fund
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 03/03/2025
Size of the Grant: $100,000 to $500,000
Grant Duration: 2 Years
Details:
The purpose of HFFI is to support food supply chain resiliency, improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas, create and preserve quality jobs, and revitalize low-income communities by providing financial and technical assistance, either directly or through other partners and intermediaries, to eligible fresh, healthy food retailers and enterprises to overcome the higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved areas.
The goal of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative is to address this critical issue by investing in food retail and food enterprises throughout the food system that contribute to improved fresh food retail access in low-income and underserved communities across the country. All Americans deserve access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Research indicates that when people have local access to fresh food, they make healthier choices about their diets, have better health outcomes, and benefit from improved local economic development. Equitable access to healthy food is enabled by a food system where enterprises across the food supply chain can thrive and deliver fresh, healthy, and affordable products. Events over the last four years have revealed how essential grocery stores, food suppliers, and their employees are to communities. The economic impact of the pandemic and inflation has constrained low-income families’ ability to afford and access healthy food. The goal of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative is to address this critical issue by investing in food retail and food enterprises throughout the food system that contribute to improved fresh food retail access in low-income and underserved communities across the country.
What they will fund?
Grant funding could assist a variety of organizations, business models, and capital needs of ventures that process, distribute, aggregate, market, and sell healthy, fresh, and affordable foods to underserved communities and markets. Applicants may be a variety of different kinds of organizations or businesses, but applications should demonstrate how funding will support the creation, expansion, or retention of a food retail or food enterprise business model. Applicants must demonstrate how their proposed project will contribute to food access through the availability of Staple and Perishable Foods for retail sale.
Proposed projects could include (but are not limited to):
- Predevelopment: Projects should be ready for implementation or shovel-ready when applying for HFFI FARE Fund grant funding. As part of implementing the project, grant funds may include predevelopment and soft costs, including appraisals, architectural or design assistance, training, or other contractual or consulting uses.
- Brick and Mortar Facility Development: Hard capital costs including land or building acquisition; construction; and fixtures, furniture, and equipment for the construction, renovation, or expansion of a brick and mortar facility. Please note that using Federal grant funds for real property (purchase or construction) will result in a Federal Interest in your property.
- Equipment and other capital needs: Hard costs for the creation, retrofit, expansion, or other onetime investment in capital needs for a retail operation or enterprise that isn’t for facility, including, machinery, equipment, technology, software, purchase of existing business assets, a one-time investment in inventory or raw materials, or other.
- Other soft costs: One-time soft costs such as training, consumer/community engagement, governance support, financial or development consultants, project management, marketing and merchandising work, environmental/energy assessments, food safety assistance, project learning and/or impact assessment, and other one-time soft costs that contribute to preserving or expanding access to food retail.
Funding Information
At least $9,000,000 is available for implementation grants for the 2024 – 2025 HFFI FARE Fund. These funds will be distributed through three rounds of funding. Implementation grant awards may be from $20,000- $250,000.
Grant Period
Projects may take up to 12 months if they do not involve construction; projects that include construction may take up to 24 months.
Eligibility Criteria
- For-profit business enterprises (including a corporation, limited liability company, sole proprietor, public benefit corporation)
- Cooperatively owned businesses
- Tax-exempt nonprofit corporations
- Institutions of higher education councils
- Tribal governments and tribal governmental agencies, authorities, and food policy councils.
For more information, visit Reinvestment Fund.