Innovative Approaches
to Healthier
Food Shelves
Presented By:
Emergency Foodshelf Network & The Minnesota Project
Presentation Overview

Increasing Healthy Foods in your Food Shelf
 Fruits
of the City Program
 Garden Gleaning Project
 Garden to Table Program

Increasing Demand for Healthy Foods
Healthy Foods Policies & External Communication
 Community Collaborations
 Merchandising Strategies


Evaluation & Collective Impact
Gleaning
 Education
 Community
Orchards

Yearly Impact
YEAR
POUNDS
GLEANERS
TREE
OWNERS
FOOD
SHELVES
2009
15,000
125
100
6
2010
24,000
150
50
12
2011
31,000
125
117
20
2012
38,000
199
169
31
Our Mission
To facilitate the harvesting and
distribution of fresh produce from
gardens in the community to local
food shelves.
Garden Gleaning Project
Garden Gleaning


Relationship Building – Neighborhood Crd.
Support Each Food Shelf with Donors
Community Gardens
 Home Gardens
 Farmers Markets & CSA’s
 Congregations
 Corporate Gardens


Support Donors
Resources to plant & donate more
 Neighborhood Coordinators
 Pick up and Deliveries

Increasing Engagement
“Zucchini is a gateway drug.
Once you get growers hooked
on how good donating feels,
they will find other produce to
share as well.”
Iowa Food Gardening Social Marketing Initiative Assessment Executive Summary
Let’s Make Donating Feel Good!
“I would be happy to donate
money to my food shelf, but I
need confidence in them that
they are effectively using my
garden donations first.”
- Donating Gardener
Garden Gleaning Progress

2011(volunteer based)
2
Partner Food Shelves
 7,334 pounds

2012
5
Partner Food Shelves
 Over 22,000 pounds

2013
7
Partner Food Shelves
 Toolkit – Best Practices
 Results
& Process
 Intentionally Diverse
Toolkit

For Food Shelves
Building Relationships
 Neighborhood
Coordinator Model
 Outreach &
Communication
Strategies
 Handling & Storage


For Produce Growers
Why Donate?
 How to Donate?
 What to Donate?
 Liability & Safety

Little Kitchen
Food Shelf
CAPI Food Shelf
Get Involved


Refer gardeners and fruit tree owners to MN Project
Recruit Local Volunteers
 Fruits
of the City
 Engage folks in growing food for you!




Consider a food shelf garden
Plant fruit trees
Get to know your nearby gardeners
Review the Toolkit
 Contribute
to the next edition
ERC’s Garden to Table
Direct Nutrition Education
EFN’s Nutrition Support
Karena Johnson, MS, RD, LD| 763.450.4207
Nutrition Outreach Specialist | kjohnson@emergencyfoodshelf.org
Policy, Systems, and Environment
Creating Change Upstream Makes the Biggest Impact
Policy Change
Changing Laws, Policies, and Rules – Formal and Informal
Policy Change at a Food Shelf
Healthy Foods Policy
What & Why
Policy Change at a Food Shelf
Create a Healthy Food Policy
Broader
Commitments
Donated
Product
Monitoring &
Measuring
Purpose
Guidelines
Nutrition
References
Nutrition
Purchased
Commitments
Product
Monitoring & Priorities &
Restrictions
Measuring
Policy Change at a Food Shelf
Development Process for a Healthy Food Policy
Annual
Assessment/
Review
Implementation
& Monitoring
Create Buy-In
Stakeholder
Feedback
Develop Policy
ApprovalLeadership &
Board
Policy Change at a Food Shelf
Healthy Food Drive Communication
Before
After
Systems Change
Changing the Underlying Structures of a System –
Values, Relationships, Policies, and Power Structures
Systems Change: Local Foods
Social Innovation Lab & Northside Fresh
Environment Change
Changing the Economic, Social, or Physical Environment
Environment Change at a Food Shelf
Environment Change at a Food Shelf
Merchandising Strategies: Facing
Before
After
Environment Change at a Food Shelf
Merchandising Strategies: Display
Before
After
Environment Change at a Food Shelf
Merchandising Strategies: Healthy Foods Signage
Environment Change at a Food Shelf
Merchandising Strategies: Cross Merchandising
Evaluation
How do we know
if what we’re
doing is working
Evaluation: Nutrient Profiling & HEI
Component
Maximum
Points
Score
Total fruits (includes 100% juice)
5
5
Whole fruit (not juice)
5
5
Total vegetables
5
5
Dark-green and orange vegetables and legumes
5
5
Total grains
5
5
Whole grains
5
1
Milk
10
1
Meat and beans
10
10
Oils
10
10
Saturated fat
10
10
Sodium
10
5
Calories from solid fat, alcohol, and added sugar (SoFAAS)
20
20
TOTAL
100
82
What do these scores mean?
•Score of 81-100 represents “good”
•Score of 51-80 represents “needing improvement”
•Score of less than 51 is “poor”
Evaluation: Data Collection
Collective Impact
Questions???
Thank You
Dave Glenn
dglenn@mnproject.org
Emily Eddy White
eeddy@emergencyfoodshelf.org
Jared Walhowe
jwalhowe@mnproject.org
Sophia Lenarz-Coy
slenarzcoy@emergencyfoodshelf.org