California FreshWorks, a food-financing project, has given more than 800,000 Californians living in food deserts access to healthy produce, according to an independent study released today.
“Our evaluation demonstrates that FreshWorks investments are making a positive difference in communities that have been underserved for way too long,” said Sallie Yoshida, executive director of the Sarah Samuels Center for Public Health Research & Evaluation, in a statement released with the study. The center partnered with InSight at Pacific Community Ventures, a consulting and research firm, on the study.
The evaluation found that FreshWorks, which was launched in 2011 by The California Endowment, a private health foundation, provided $58 million to supermarkets, small grocers and entrepreneurs via 48 separate grants through 2015. The goal was to increase access to high-quality, affordable food in communities across the state that are afflicted by poor health outcomes. It also said that FreshWorks boosted economic development in these communities.
“Nearly one million Californians, 45 percent of whom are low-income, live without access to nearby supermarkets or large grocery stores,” according to the study. Such food deserts have been identified as a factor in the high rates of obesity and diet-related diseases that plague the American healthcare system. Giving people better access to fresh fruits and vegetables has been a key strategy in combating this problem. In recent years, though, other studies have raised questions about whether access alone is enough—finding that the addition of grocery stores and other sources of fresh food had little or no impact on the diets of people who live nearby.
For more on the debate over access, check out FERN’s 2014 story, “Can Whole Foods Change the Way Poor People Eat?“