Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Food Basket (TFB) launched DA BUX in 2017 as a pilot SNAP nutrition incentive programin Hawaii County. Since its statewide expansion in 2020 to all four counties, DA BUX has been available year-round, offering a 50% discount on Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables (FV) for SNAP households. While DA BUX has expanded rapidly since our pilot, several assessments surveying SNAP participants show there are several barriers to participation. The following project goals and objectives were strategically crafted to respond to SNAP participant feedback. Goal 1-ACCESS: Increase SNAP participant access to affordable Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables by (1) expanding DA BUX to 19 new food retailers, and (2) supporting Food Hubs to accept SNAP payment online. Goal 2-AWARENESS: Increase purchasing of Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables among SNAP participants by increasing promotion and awareness of DA BUX through implementing (1) new online cashier training modules, and (2) a SNAP-participant informed public marketing campaign. Goal 3-USAGE: Increase consumption of Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables available through DA BUX by delivering free farm-to-table, nutrition education through (1) distribution of culturally-relevant, child nutrition education activity books, and (2) delivery of "Na Kuke Opio" cooking classes. TFB is uniquely positioned to execute a successful project as we are working with community-based partners to achieve each project objective, including SNAP participants, our State SNAP Agency, Hawaii Good Food Alliance, and University of Hawaii SNAP-Ed program. The outcomes achieved from this project aim to enhance the long-term viability of DA BUX implementation.
Animal Health Component
35%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
30%
Applied
35%
Developmental
35%
Goals / Objectives
Our project goals and objectives are strategically crafted to respond to SNAP participant feedback on their barriers to DA BUX participation through targeted access, awareness and usage interventions.Goal 1-ACCESS: Increase SNAP participant access to affordable Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables available through DA BUX program grocery stores and Food Hubs.Goal 1 Objectives1. Expand DA BUX to 19 new food retailers (15 grocery stores and 4 Food Hubs), including the 13 remaining Foodland locations.2. Provide training and technical assistance to 6 DA BUX Food Hubs to upgrade their e-commerce platforms and become federally-authorized to accept SNAP online.Goal 2-AWARENESS: Increase purchasing of Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables among SNAP participants by increasing promotion and awareness of DA BUX.Goal 2 Objectives1. Develop and implement new online cashier training modules, and SNAP participant informed promotional materials at partner grocery stores and SNAP Agency Processing Centers to ensure they are well equipment to promote and implement DA BUX.2. Implement a SNAP participant-informed public marketing campaign.Goal 3-USAGE: Increase consumption of Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables available through the DA BUX program by strengthening partnerships and increasing capacity among statewide nutrition educators to deliver free farm-to-table, nutrition education to youth in SNAP households.Goal 3 Objectives1.Deliver nutrition education to young children from pre-K to grade 5 through the distribution of culturally relevant, child nutrition education activity books.2. Deliver nutrition education to older youth in grades 6-12 through Na Kuke Opio cooking classes at youth sites.
Project Methods
The following efforts will be made to change knowledge, actions (behavior), and conditions of our target audience:Our project will operate year-round due to Hawaii's tropical climate that is conducive to year-round growing.Hawaii grown fruits and vegetables meeting the GusNIP definition are eligible for a 50% DA BUX discount.The maximum ratio of SNAP dollars spent on DA BUX eligible items to incentives earned is 1:1.To provide flexibility at grocery stores in the event that a SNAP shopper has insufficient SNAP funds to pay for their balance, the SNAP shopper must make a 1 cent minimum SNAP purchase to earn their discount, but must use another payment method to pay the remaining balance.DA BUX does not have a daily limit on the value of the discount that can be issued per day, but we instruct retailers to restrict SNAP shoppers to one discount transaction per day.There are no policies about incentive expiration.Retail staff must read "SNAP" or "Food Stamps" on a successfully processed receipt to verify the customer is an active SNAP participant.The 50% DA BUX discount is configured in retailers' POS software to apply only to a set list of programmed items. At farmers markets, eligible purchases are manually monitored.The SNAP participant will immediately know the amount of incentive earned when they place their online order or when they checkout at a grocery store. The total calculation of the discount will appear on the POS screen at checkout.Each refund of produce purchased with SNAP benefits and DA BUX incentive are carefully monitored by the retailer management who are trained by DA BUX staff to only refund the SNAP customer for the SNAP dollar amount collected on returned items. DA BUX staff also do a secondary audit of all refunds processed by Food Hubs when retailers submit their monthly transaction data.The financial instrument used across all retailers is a 50% discount. Only one firm--Waianae Farmers' Market-- uses an innovative scrip system to offer this discount. SNAP dollars are first exchanged for SNAP tokens at a central SNAP booth, and the market staff provide matching "Double Bucks" coupons (i.e. incentives) that are distinct from the SNAP tokens used to purchase any SNAP eligible food. There is no limit on the amount of matching incentives that a SNAP shopper can receive. SNAP shoppers are instructed that each "Double Bucks'' coupon alone has no value and is worth $1 only when combined with a matching $1-SNAP token to pay for eligible Hawaii grown produce. The enforcement of this policy allows a 50% discount model to be maintained.We will announce the program launch at 19 new retailers via paid radio, newspaper, and social media advertisements in addition to SNAP participant-informed marketing strategies.The development of an online cashier training plan is a major component of this project. A full-time Retailer Support Manager (RSM) will work with KTA Super Stores to develop and test new online training modules. Once the training modules are completed, the RSM will be responsible for implementing this training with all participating retailers statewide and providing ongoing technical support for newly onboarded cashiers throughout the year.All retailers will self-report their count of individual SNAP participants based on their POS capacity. Most Food Hubs are able to track the unique count of SNAP participants because they process produce orders associated with a customer name and payment type.Nutrition education is a major component of this project. Two key strategies will be used to deliver nutrition education: 1) distribution of children activity books, and 2) the delivery of the NKO cooking classes.SNAP participants will participate in: 1) in-person intercept surveys collected at community sites; 2) online surveys emailed to addresses provided upon sign up for a DA BUX Access Card, and 3) interviews conducted at the Na Kuke Opiohosting sites. These SNAP participant engagements are not a requirement to receive incentives.This project aims to enhance a minimum of 6 Food Hubs' e-commerce platforms for eligibility to participate in the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot.The results of the project will be analyzed, evaluated or interpreted in the following ways:A Process Assessment will be provided in the annual USDA-NIFA Progress Reports required of GusNIP grantees. The Process Assessment will report on the progress of reaching program implementation outputs including: (1) the number of Foodland stores onboarded, (2) the number of Food Hubs that received federal authorization to accept SNAP online, (3) completion of online cashier training modules, (4) number of youth in pre-K to grade 5 receiving culturally-relevant, child nutrition education activity books, and (5) the number of Na Kuke Opio classes delivered at youth sites. Additionally, we will report on feedback received from SNAP participants through our program hotline and email. DA BUX Team staff meet weekly to discuss how to respond to any feedback received from SNAP participants or from community leaders representing low-income communities.An Outcomes Assessment will evaluate our 3 project goals: (1) Goal 1, Outcome 1 will be evaluated through a GIS spatial analysis of SNAP household access to DA BUX. This analysis measures the percentage of SNAP households living within normal shopping distance of a DA BUX retail site. "Normal" is defined as 0.5 miles in dense urban neighborhoods, and 3.5 miles in rural areas, based on USDA data on average grocery-shopping distances traveled by SNAP participants.(2) Goal 2, Outcomes 1 & 2 will be evaluated through a 2026 DA BUX Awareness and Usage Assessment that will survey a power-sample of 385 SNAP participants. In-person intercept surveys will be collected at community sites, such as food distributions and public housing. Goal 2, Outcome 3 will be evaluated via monthly incentive transaction details submitted by all 77 DA BUX retailers. DA BUX Team accounting and data management personnel thoroughly audit data submissions for GusNIP and SNAP compliance and safely store this proprietary data for our annual financial audit and internal evaluation. (3) Goal 3, Outcome 1 will evaluate new knowledge of food preparation through interviews with 20 youth participants conducted by the DA BUX Community Engagement Manager. Goal 3, Outcome 2 will evaluate fruit and vegetableconsumption through the annual collection of 200 DA BUX Participant surveys. These surveys collect required NTAE core metrics and will be submitted to the NTAE annually. IRB review of our Outcomes Assessment will be requested through the University of Hawaii at Manoa as Dr. Vanessa Buchthal is our primary external evaluator that oversees survey collection.