WALLACE HUFED CENTER ANNOUNCES FIRST TEN GRANTEES FOR YEAR 1 AWARDS
September 15, 2010

The Wallace HUFED Center is pleased to announce the first 10 enterprise grantees for Year One of the Healthy Urban Food Enterprise Development (HUFED) Center. These ten enterprises collectively represent a diverse and unique portfolio of approaches, regions and target audiences for improving access to healthy, affordable, local foods for underserved communities across the United States. Wallace HUFED Center received over 500 Letters of Interest and nearly 50 full proposals. The ten enterprises selected represent the best-of-the-best in social enterprise and entrepreneurial thinking, and rated highest on: a) the strength of their proposed enterprise within the guidelines provided; b) their innovation and ability to apply solutions with a social enterprise, market-based change approach, to the national agenda around food access; c) their ability to hit the ground running and deliver results within the life of the grant; and d) their contribution to the overall diversity of the grant portfolio (in terms of communities served, geography, size of enterprise, and other grant selection criteria), which will collectively support broader impacts and contribute to the development of successful strategies and replicable models.

In terms of approach, the finalists for Year 1 fell into one or more of the following categories:

Business/Social Enterprise Incubation: these projects will accelerate the successful development of businesses that increase access to healthy food. Types of support offered by the grantee include (but are not limited to): shared usage of facilities for storage, processing, and/or distribution; business plan development; and marketing assistance.

Value Chain Support: these projects will increase the flow of healthy food from producers to consumers. Improvements in the aggregation, processing, distribution, and transportation of food will eliminate inefficiencies, making farmers and food producers more competitive in the market and lowering the unit costs of their products.

EBT/SNAP/WIC: these projects will facilitate SNAP and WIC acceptance at farmers’ markets, farm stands, corner stores, and in alternative distribution methods. Types of support may include: training market managers in SNAP/WIC reimbursement, increasing participation among farmers’ market vendors, and social marketing directed at SNAP/WIC beneficiaries.

Nutrition Education/Community Outreach: although the scope of HUFED grants is limited to increasing food access through market-based change, many projects will include ancillary efforts to promote healthy eating habits in underserved communities.

Equipment Purchases: the majority of applicants’ and grantees’ budgets will include purchases of equipment related to food production, processing, storage, and marketing. Examples include shelving, refrigeration, grain mills, prep tables, ovens, and stoves.

Food Safety/Certification and Labeling: these projects will bring farmers and food producers in compliance with food safety regulations and industry standards by financing training, consulting, and purchases of equipment. Types of regulations include: federal (USDA) grant of inspection, state and local health regulations, GlobalGap certification, and other business-to-business standards..

More information:

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Wallace HUFED Center Year One Grantees

Organization:

Website: www.albafarmers.org

The Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) of Salinas, California creates opportunities for beginning and minority organic farmers through education, demonstration, and small-farm incubators. In 2002, ALBA created ALBA Organics as an earned-income social enterprise selling fresh produce from socially disadvantaged and limited-resource farmers. ALBA is awarded a 1-year large enterprise award to expand and improve long-term economic viability of ALBA Organics through third-party food safety certification to increase sales to retailers and institutional and school buyers serving low-income communities. The enterprise will benefit limited-resource food businesses and immigrant farmers, as well as low-income school children who are predominantly Latino/Hispanic.

Organization:

Website: www.dccentralkitchen.org

For 21 years, DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) of Washington, DC has provided free meals and culinary job training to low-income and at-risk individuals in the Washington, DC area. Each day, DCCK prepares and distributes 4,500 meals to 100 partner nonprofit and social service agencies. Their Farm to Kitchen program purchases fresh produce from area farms that is then used in DCCK’s daily meal production and revenue-generating Fresh Start catering and contract food service. DCCK is awarded a 3-year large enterprise award to expand local purchasing. This expansion will add 3 new produce processing shifts, allowing DCCK to accommodate more volunteers and hire more graduates of its job training program. A greater supply of local produce will also improve Fresh Start’s capacity to take on new customers, enhancing the Kitchen’s financial sustainability. This enterprise will provide meals to low-income DC-area residents, create jobs for marginalized populations, and sustain the income of local farmers and growers.

Organization:

Website: www.dixonmarket.com

The Dixon Cooperative Market of Rio Arriba County, New Mexico is the only grocery store serving the community of Dixon and several other small and unincorporated mountain villages in the Embudo Valley Watershed. The Co-op is in its fifth year of operation, and together with the library next door, has become the cultural and economic heart of its community. Dixon Cooperative Market is awarded a 3-year large enterprise award to ramp up its capacity and ability to sell healthy foods, through capital and infrastructure improvements for food safety/handling, and will serve as a conduit for local growers to market their products to local consumers. The enterprise will benefit local growers and consumers and provide healthy, affordable food to the consumers of the entire Embudo Valley community.

Organization:

Website: www.grasslakesanctuary.com
Additional Information: Grass Lake Sanctuary E-Brochure

Grass Lake Sanctuary of Manchester, Michigan teaches healthy cooking classes in the community and promotes local food catering activities, with food grown on their own 145-acres. Grass Lake Sanctuary is awarded a 1-year feasibility study to evaluate the viability of creating a rural food hub (as one example of a values-based food supply chain) to aggregate, wash, pack, and distribute fresh locally grown fruits and vegetable from small- and mid-sized farmers to underserved populations in Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio. Working with collaborators Fair Food Network and Originz, the hypothesis for this study is that fresh, vitally alive, rurally grown produce can be aggregated, washed and distributed into Detroit neighborhoods—at a fair price for purchaser, farmer and aggregator—on an ongoing basis.

Organization: GrowNYC (formerly the Council on the Environment of NYC)
Location: New York, New York
Award Type: 3-year large enterprise award
Website: www.grownyc.org

GrowNYC (formerly the Council on the Environment of NYC) of New York, New York manages the Wholesale Greenmarket (WGM), New York City’s only market for direct wholesaling of local farm fresh products to retailers, restaurants, institutional buyers and food processors. GrowNYC is awarded a 1-year large enterprise award to revitalize WGM, to strategically grow the market’s supply and demand through farmer and buyer recruitment, and to increase farmers’ capacity to supply diversified markets. This enterprise targets two very different underserved communities, one urban and one rural: residents of NYC food desert areas, and small and mid-size farmers who lack appropriate markets but could provide these high-need urban areas with fresh affordable local food.

Organization: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Award Type: 1-year large enterprise award
Website: www.iatp.org

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) of Minneapolis, Minnesota is an established leader in the field of local foods, rural economic development, and healthy eating. IATP’s Local Foods program focuses on K-12 public schools as a key channel for reaching children, particularly low-income children who are the greatest risk for poor nutrition and health problems. IATP is awarded a 1-year large enterprise award to strengthen the local food infrastructure needed to expand Minnesota’s Farm to School in ways that are financially attractive and sustainable for distributors, processors, farmers, and schools alike. This enterprise will benefit children of color and low-income communities, as well as small- and mid-sized farmers.

Organization: Los Angeles Communities Advocating for Unity, Social Justice, and Action (LA CAUSA)
Location: Los Angeles, California
Award Type: 1-year small enterprise award
Website: https://lacausainc.sslpowered.com/LaCausaSite/Index.html

Los Angeles Communities Advocating for Unity, Social Justice, and Action (LA CAUSA) of Los Angeles, California is recognized both locally and nationally as one of the premier youth leadership and community development organizations. LA CAUSA is awarded a 1-year small enterprise award to implement market makeovers to increase the availability, appeal, and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables in East Los Angeles. Market makeovers address the bottleneck lack of healthy foods in small markets and corner stores, and will build on existing processes centered on participation and inclusivity, to build a collective sense of ownership and investment in the community. This enterprise will benefit limited-resource residents and small market owners of East Los Angeles, who are predominantly Latino/Hispanic.

Organization: La Cocina
Location: San Francisco, California
Award Type: 3-year large enterprise award
Website: www.lacocinasf.org

La Cocina of San Francisco, California has been a fixture in the Mission District community since 2005 and works with food business incubator participants to devise ways to improve the quality and healthiness of their businesses’ products, to source from local and organic food producers, and to develop green business practices. La Cocina is awarded a 3-year large enterprise award to increase the opportunities available to limited-resource entrepreneurs – most of whom are women, immigrants, and people of color--who want to become owners of micro-enterprises that offer low-cost, healthy food options to traditionally underserved communities. This enterprise will work with business incubator graduates to pilot mobile market street carts serving healthy ethnic food; the project will benefit low-income food entrepreneurs and their communities.

Organization: Peta Wakan Tipi
Location: St. Paul, Minnesota
Award Type: 1-year small enterprise award
Website: www.petawakantipi.org

Since 1996, Peta Wakan Tipi (“Sacred Fire Lodge” in the Lakota language) of St. Paul, Minnesota has provided aftercare residences for American Indian men and woman who have completed chemical dependency treatment. In 1998, Peta Wakan Tipi created the Dream of Wild Health to bring traditional Native plants – and their culinary, medicinal, and spiritual uses – to the broader American Indian Community. Peta Wakan Tipi is awarded a 1-year small enterprise grant to develop Healthy Food for Native Families. The enterprise will develop a pilot project for a socially and economically equitable food distribution network that will center on alternative distribution methods such as mobile markets, working with American Indian organizations serving Native families in St. Paul. This enterprise will benefit American Indian families, including emergency shelter for runaway and homeless American Indian youth.

Organization: Shagbark Seed and Mill Company
Location: Athens, Ohio
Award Type: 1-year small enterprise award
Website: asfc.weebly.com/shagbark-seed--mill-co.html

Shagbark Seed and Mill Company of Athens, Ohio is a project-to-business program to meet the Appalachian Staple Foods Collaborative’s mission to enhance sustainable farm economies and food security in the Central Appalachian region. Shagbark Seed and Mill is an outgrowth of a prototype staple crop processing facility that tests and demonstrates a regional-scale commercial operation. Shagbark Seed and Mill is awarded a 1-year small enterprise to remove several bottlenecks in reaching lower-wealth consumers by introducing these foods to consumers where they shop, meeting the retailers’ labeling and insurance requirements, and procuring and installing processing equipment to lower costs. This enterprise will benefit disadvantaged farmers, low-income families, and underserved youth entrepreneurs.

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For more information:
Michelle Frain Muldoon
Program Manager, Wallace HUFED Center
HUFED@winrock.org
HUFED Hotline: (703) 531-8810