Southern California Nutrition Incentive Program
The UC San Diego Center for Community Health has received a $3.4 million, four-year Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. Working with Northgate Gonzalez Markets and other community partners, the Center will develop, implement, and evaluate a multi-tiered intervention program that enables low-income, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) consumers across San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles Counties to make healthier food choices and purchase more fruits and vegetables by providing incentives at the point of purchase. This program will be implemented in 40 Northgate Gonzalez Markets across San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles Counties and will include:
- an innovative fruit and vegetable financial incentive rebate program utilizing Northgate Gonzalez Markets’ customer loyalty card, and newly developed technologies including electronic wallet (e-wallet);
- fruit and vegetable promotions including discounted pricing and couponing; and
- SNAP-Education (SNAP-Ed) programming (e.g., in-store cooking classes, tours, and healthy food self-labeling system) to educate and support the purchasing behaviors of SNAP families.
Through the use of Northgate Gonzalez Markets’ customer loyalty card, e-wallet, and SNAP participants’ Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, the program will track the purchase of fruits and vegetables by SNAP participants and provide a rebate to be used to purchase additional fruits and vegetables, ultimately increasing SNAP participants’ purchasing power for healthy food options. Furthermore, this program will provide key data on purchasing behaviors such as per capita spending on fruits and vegetables and changes among SNAP participants in: knowledge of healthy food options; and confidence and self-efficacy to purchase and consume a greater variety of fruits and vegetables.
Read the USDA press release here
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