The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Reinvestment Fund announced the latest expansion of America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), a nationwide program created to provide local solutions to increase food access in communities.
Donor Name: Reinvestment Fund
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 10/14/2024
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
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.
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.
The FARE Fund supports innovative fresh food retail and food system enterprises that seek to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas through food retail. Funding could assist projects with a variety of aspects of project development, renovation, and/or expansion. Grants and loans are designed to be one-time investments of capital into a food retail or food enterprise project in order to address higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved rural and urban areas. Grant and loan funds should unlock additional sources of capital, catalyze project sustainability, meet financing gaps, and/or enable deeper impact or project reach. Technical Assistance (TA) will be available to support selected early-stage planning and predevelopment projects where resources would help build local capacity to develop a food retail outlet or food enterprise and would clarify or advance an eligible project.
Funding Information
This Request for Applications (RFA) is for the 2024-2025 HFFI Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund (HFFI FARE Fund). Over the next 5 years, the new program will offer $60 million in loans, grants, and technical assistance for the predevelopment, planning, and implementation of eligible projects aiming to increase food access, and strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain. For the 2024-2025 funding cycle, at least $9,000,000 is available for implementation grants, at least $1,500,000 is available for technical assistance, and at least $16,000,000 is available for loans.
Eligibility Criteria
The FARE Fund will provide grants, loans, and technical assistance to eligible organizations in eligible Underserved Areas to implement a project that is designed to improve access to fresh, Healthy Food through food retail. The program will support projects aiming to strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain. The program 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.
The FARE Fund seeks to primarily support Retail Outlets or Food Enterprises within the food retail supply chain that meet the eligibility requirements described in this section of the RFA. For example, a retailer or developer might seek grant funding as a portion of an overall capital project to build a new grocery store or renovate a portion of an existing store in order to retain or expand access to full-service grocery stores in an Underserved Area. A community-based nonprofit organization or cooperative might seek funding for predevelopment and materials to develop an alternative or nontraditional retail distribution model such as a pop-up retail outlet in a low-population community that has limited access to fresh foods. A retail applicant might seek funds to expand e-commerce or delivery options to better reach rural communities not served by a grocery store. A food enterprise applicant might seek funding for equipment to expand their produce distribution company in order to improve and expand food access at a number of Retail Outlets in Underserved Areas.
Eligible Organizations:
- 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
- State and local governments and governmental agencies, authorities, commissions and food policy councils
- Tribal governments and tribal governmental agencies, authorities, and food policy councils.
For more information, visit Reinvestment Fund.
