Progress 05/15/16 to 05/14/19
Outputs
Target Audience:SPUR's Santa Clara County Healthy Food Incentive Grocery Project, also known as Double Up Food Bucks California, distributed incentives to CalFresh participants at five grocery stores in Santa Clara County. Four of the stores are in San Jose, CA: two Arteaga's Food Center, a Lucky 7 (formerly known as Food Bowl 99), and a Santa Fe Market. The fourth store is another Arteaga's Food Center located in Gilroy, a small city 30 miles south of San Jose. The people most likely to shop at these stores are residents from the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the stores, and those areas are where SPUR has targeted project outreach. Double Up Food Bucks incentives are only available for consumers buying fresh food using CalFresh/SNAP benefits. CalFresh is available to households with net incomes below the federal poverty limit, therefore the beneficiaries of this program are low- and very low-income families. In Santa Clara County, at least 70% of CalFresh participants identify as people of color. During the reporting period, SPUR conducted outreach through a variety of channels described in the table below. Nearly all forms of outreach have engaged CalFresh families in the three languages most common among CalFresh participants in Santa Clara County: English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Outreach Efforts Description Est. Num. of Unique Households Reached Coupon redemption within stores Number of households (based on last four digits of their EBT card) who have either earned or redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons 2,000 In-store greeters Staff from Second Harvest Food Bank spend 2 hours per week at each store greeting customers and informing them about the program Unknown Family Resource Centers Staff from FIRST 5 provide information about the program to their clients Unknown Mailing flyers In March 2017, the Social Services Agency mailed a flyer about the program to the homes of families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores 22,000 Text messages In March 2017 and in May 2018, the Social Services Agency sent text messages -- in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese -- with a link to our program website to families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores Approximately 40,000 Automated telephone calls In March 2017 and May 2018, the Social Services Agency sent automated phone calls -- in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese -- with information about our program to families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores Approximately 40,000 Double Up Food Bucks California website Unique visitors to our program website between May 15, 2017 and May 14, 2019 32,000 Changes/Problems:SPUR faced technical problems in implementing the Double Up Food Bucks pilot with regard to point-of-sale coupon and reporting systems in participating stores. These problems were resolved but delayed the start of the pilot by six months, as we discussed in our first Progress Report. We still ran the pilot for nearly a full year, but it was the from late February - December 2017 rather than our original schedule of summer 2016 - summer 2017. We are very pleased that all stores that have participated during the first and second year are enthusiastic about committing to the program for as long as funding continues. We will be starting our second FINI grant this year and all currently participating stores will carry over into that grant. This enthusiasm from the grocers indicates that the program is running smoothly enough and drawing enough revenue to stores that these grocery partners found it worthwhile, though participation requires additional work from them. On the other hand, with every store, the largest hurdle has been to get the program initiated, and there have been significant delays at almost every site. For example, we expected to on-board a fourth store in fall 2017, but it took until March 2018 for that store to launch. Once the program is running at an individual store, however, there have been few glitches and the stores and their customers are very pleased with the program. The customer intercept survey evaluation effort required more staffing than we had initially anticipated, and so we have adjusted our plans for next year based on that experience. We also continue to refine the store reports we receive so we can more easily interpret the sales data. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of the Double Up Food Bucks program, SPUR staff provided training to numerous project partners, including cashiers at each participating grocery store; CalFresh benefits staff at Social Service Agency offices across the County; and local Spanish-speaking community health outreach workers (also known as "promotoras") affiliated with the Food Bank. Two SPUR staff members have learned and sharpened skills during the pilot, including executing various types of evaluation; public speaking; media interviewing; and community outreach techniques. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?SPUR shares the program's progress and results with our project advisory committee during monthly meetings. The advisory committee includes representatives from project partner organizations including the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency, the County Public Health Department, Second Harvest Food Bank, and FIRST 5 Santa Clara County. Additionally, we provide data to the Fair Food Network and to the USDA's evaluator, Westat. Fair Food Network manages a national network of projects using the Double Up Food Bucks model, and will compile our results with those of other grocery and farmers' market incentive projects. Westat is conducting the official multi-site evaluation of all FINI grantees. Project updates and highlights of preliminary evaluation results from our evaluator, John Snow Inc., have been shared through public presentations and our periodic "Friends of Double Up Food Bucks" newsletter. We have also posted a summary from the year one evaluation on our website and will post the year two evaluation summary when it is completed soon. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: Improved food security and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables among CalFresh families in our target neighborhoods In the 22 months between our launch of Double Up Food Bucks in February 2017 and the end of 2018, at least 3,300 CalFresh households redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons. Given the demographic and household information we collected through the customer intercept surveys, that translates to the program having reached 7,600 - 11,200 people, including 6,600 children ages 0-18 years old. During both years of Double Up Food Bucks, 97-99% of CalFresh participants reported that they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they and their families were buying and eating more fruits and vegetables because of the program. Similarly, 93-95% agreed or strongly agreed that Double Up Food Bucks helped them stretch their food budget, thereby improving food security. These survey responses give us confidence that the program is having its intended impact and that our results are similar to the results of previous incentive programs elsewhere in the country. Across all five stores, CalFresh families redeemed approximately $2,000 per month in Double Up Food Bucks during the reporting period, helping them afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Between February 21, 2017 and December 31, 2018, CalFresh families redeemed more than $181,000 in coupons. In 2017, the average value per coupon redeemed was $3.32. In 2018, the average value per coupon redeemed was $3.19. Over the course of this project, with Double Up Food Bucks operating ultimately in five stores, a total of $300,000 in incentives was distributed to CalFresh families. This exceed our original goal of distributing at least $200,000 in incentives, though over a longer time period than originally envisioned. We attribute this shortfall in the first year, in part, to overestimating the amount of coupons that would be generated by participants. Goal 2: Increased sales of California grown produce at participating grocery stores, especially local produce In both 2018 and 2019 we completed historical analyses of produce sales at the majority of our participating stores. Between 2016 and 2017 we found year-over-year growth in produce sales at all three stores following the launch of our program in February. Specifically, between March and December 2017, yearly produce sales were up between 4% and 12% over the previous year. Comparing 2017 to 2018, the pattern was not as clear. Four of our participating stores saw their year-over-year produce sales stay steady or increase by up to 11%. However, one store saw a dip of 5% in their produce sales. The mixed results indicate that it may be difficult to attribute changes in whole store produce sales to the Double Up Food Bucks program. If the stores could track change in produce sales just among CalFresh/SNAP customers, it would provide a more granular set of data from which to evaluate the impact of our healthy food incentives program from a sales data perspective. Beginning in May 2017, produce managers at all three stores began meeting with staff from Community Alliance with Family Farmers, who advised each store on how to increase their procurement of local and California-grown produce. CAFF provided each store management team with recommendations of potential new vendors they could source from to increase the amount of local food the stocked on their shelves. Prior to launching Double Up Food Bucks, none of the participating grocers tracked California-grown produce apart from general produce not grown in-state. That made it impossible to conduct an analysis of change in sale of California-grown produce in 2017. However, for three participating stores, we were able to review that data in 2018. Two of the stores saw increased sales of California produce year-over-year (one 9% increase, the other 20%). The third store saw no change year-over-year in California produce sales. Goal 3: Broader and deeper support for expanding healthy food incentives statewide at grocery stores and farmers markets among policymakers, food system stakeholders, and the general public in California. The Double Up Food Bucks pilot was enthusiastically embraced by the shoppers who participated in the program. Through our customer intercept surveys, we found that 98-99% of CalFresh respondents who had used Double Up Food Bucks desired to see the program expanded. This overwhelming response has encouraged us as we seek to expand and we aim to maintain that level of satisfaction with the program. From a grocer perspective, multiple stores in Santa Clara County have approached us about joining the program (though, for various reasons, we have not been able to bring all of them on board). And, all our current grocers are interested in continuing it into the future. We also received interest from grocers outside our current geography, including in Davis, Chico, and Sanger, California. We have also made significant headway with policymakers. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved a total of $90,000 over three years to support an expansion of Double Up Food Bucks. At the state level, we are very excited to report concrete progress on the expansion of healthy food incentives to all of California. In early 2018, at the urging of SPUR and our partner California Food Policy Advocates, state Senator Scott Wiener introduced legislation, the California Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Project, which would fund a pilot program to test incentive integration in the state's EBT system. The bill (originally known as SB 900) had bipartisan support in the state Assembly and Senate and, in June, the Governor signed a budget that included $9 million and the full legislative language for the pilot to move forward. The law gives the California Department of Social Services until the end of 2021 to complete a multi-site pilot of the upgraded EBT system. Since the start of 2019, SPUR has been meeting with the staff implementing the legislation, providing best practices based on experience in Massachusetts, and offering technical assistance to the agency to ensure California's program is able to leverage previous efforts in the most cost-effective way. We also saw strong interest from the media, which reflects a larger public interest in how incentives can help make healthy food more affordable while also supporting local agricultural economies. At least 10 stories appeared in media outlets, including features from Civil Eats, San Francisco Chronicle, the Gilroy Dispatch, on Sacramento's Capital Public Radio, and on NBC's and Telemundo's Comunidad Del Valle television program. Some of these stories are linked on SPUR's Double Up Food Bucks website at www.spur.org/healthyfood. Goal 4: Further refinement of bounce-back coupon incentive distribution technology. In early 2018, we successfully replicated the bounce-back coupon functionality that we developed at Arteaga's Food Center with another grocery chain. This will make it much easier to expand to any other store using NCR's ISS 45 point of sale system (which is common among independent grocers in Northern California), as we had hoped. The cost of installing the program at a store is now less than $1,000, which large stores can make up quite quickly in additional revenue earned through the program.
Publications
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
John Snow, Inc., Evaluation of the Santa Clara County Double Up Food Bucks Project Year 1 , May 2018.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Awaiting Publication
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
John Snow, Inc., Evaluation of the Santa Clara County Double Up Food Bucks Project Year 2, May 2019.
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Progress 05/15/17 to 05/14/18
Outputs
Target Audience:SPUR's Santa Clara County Healthy Food Incentive Grocery Project, also known as Double Up Food Bucks California, distributed incentives to CalFresh participants at four grocery stores in Santa Clara County. Three of the stores are in San Jose, CA: an Arteaga's Food Center, a Lucky 7 (formerly known as Food Bowl 99), and a Santa Fe Market. The fourth store is another Arteaga's Food Center located in Gilroy, a small city 30 miles south of San Jose. The people most likely to shop at these stores are residents from the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the stores, and those areas are where SPUR has targeted project outreach. Double Up Food Bucks incentives are only available for consumers buying fresh food using CalFresh/SNAP benefits. CalFresh is available to households with net incomes below the federal poverty limit, therefore the beneficiaries of this program are low- and very low-income families. In Santa Clara County, at least 70% of CalFresh participants identify as people of Color. During the reporting period, SPUR conducted outreach through a variety of channels described in the table below. Nearly all forms of outreach have engaged CalFresh families in the three languages most common among CalFresh participants in Santa Clara County: English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Outreach Efforts Description Est. Num. of Unique Households Reached Coupon distribution/redemption within stores Number of households (based on last four digits of their EBT card) who have either earned or redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons between Feb - Dec. 2017. 2,000 In-store greeters Staff from Second Harvest Food Bank spend 2 hours per week at each store greeting customers and informing them about the program Unknown Family Resource Centers Staff from FIRST 5 provide information about the program to their clients Unknown Text messages In May 2018, the Social Services Agency sent text messages -- in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese -- with a link to our program website to families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores Approximately 20,000 Automated telephone calls In early May 2018, the Social Services Agency sent automated phone calls -- in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese -- with information about our program to families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores Approximately 20,000 Double Up Food Bucks California website Unique visitors to our program website between May 15, 2017 and May 14, 2018 17,700 Changes/Problems:SPUR faced technical problems in implementing the Double Up Food Bucks pilot with regard to point-of-sale coupon and reporting systems in participating stores. These problems were resolved but delayed the start of the pilot by six months, as we discussed in our previous Progress Report. We still ran the pilot for nearly a full year, but it was the from late February - December 2017 calendar year rather than our original schedule of summer 2016 - summer 2017. We are very pleased that all three stores that participated during the first year of Double Up Food Bucks were enthusiastic about committing to the program for another year. This indicates that the program is running smoothly enough and drawing enough revenue to stores that these grocery partners found it worthwhile, though participation requires additional work from them. On the other hand, with every store, the largest hurdle has been to get the program initiated, and there have been significant delays at almost every site. For example, we expected to on-board a fourth store in fall 2017, but it took until March 2018 for that store to launch. Once the program is running at an individual store, however, there have been few glitches and the stores and their customers are very pleased with the program. The customer intercept survey evaluation effort required more staffing than we had initially anticipated, and so we have adjusted our plans for next year based on that experience. We also continue to refine the store reports we receive so we can more easily interpret the sales data. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of the Double Up Food Bucks program, SPUR staff provided training to numerous project partners, including cashiers at each participating grocery store; CalFresh benefits staff at Social Service Agency offices across the County; and local Spanish-speaking community health outreach workers (also known as "promotoras") affiliated with the Food Bank. Two SPUR staff members have learned and sharpened skills during the pilot, including executing various types of evaluation; public speaking; media interviewing; and community outreach techniques. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?SPUR shares the program's progress and results with our project advisory committee during monthly meetings. The advisory committee includes representatives from project partner organizations including the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency, the County Public Health Department, Second Harvest Food Bank, and FIRST 5 Santa Clara County. Additionally, we provide data to the Fair Food Network and to the USDA's evaluator, Westat. Fair Food Network manages a national network of projects using the Double Up Food Bucks model, and will compile our results with those of other grocery and farmers' market incentive projects. Westat is conducting the official multi-site evaluation of all FINI grantees. Project updates and highlights of preliminary evaluation results from our evaluator, John Snow Inc., have been shared through public presentations and our periodic "Friends of Double Up Food Bucks" newsletter. At the conclusion of our pilot, we will release a final evaluation report through SPUR's website and reach out to media to share our findings as well. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Looking ahead, SPUR plans to continue Double Up Food Bucks in the three grocery stores that participated in our pilot, while expanding into additional stores in Santa Clara County, and venture for the first time into at least two stores in San Francisco. This expansion is being funded by the remaining funds we have from the original FINI grant as well as additional grants we have received from local sources. In Santa Clara County, SPUR is on track to launch Double Up Food Bucks in two new stores in San Jose by summer 2018, and to add two additional stores by the end of 2018 or early 2019. Stores coming on board in the next three months include: Arteaga's at 1003 Lincoln Avenue (roll-out expected by May) Lucky 7 at 1675 Tully Road (roll-out expected by June). In San Francisco, SPUR is working with the Healthy Retail SF and EatSF programs to help connect with grocers who have already shown a commitment and interest in promoting produce purchases among low-income customers. We are optimistic that we will be able to bring at least two stores on by fall 2018. We will continue working with all our participating grocers to promote the program within the stores; and continue community outreach with our partner organizations, particularly outreach that is focused on community groups working with low-income individuals and families near participating stores. Our independent evaluator will produce and we will publish a final report on the results of the pilot by the end of May 2018. SPUR will disseminate results to project partners, supporters, Fair Food Network, the USDA, and interested policymakers.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: Improved food security and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables among CalFresh families in our target neighborhoods In the ten months between our launch of Double Up Food Bucks in February 2017 and the end of that year, at least 1,900 CalFresh households redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons. Given the demographic and household information we collected through the customer intercept surveys, that translates to the program having reached at least 6,500 people, including 3,800 children ages 0-18 years old. During the first year of Double Up Food Bucks, 98-99% of CalFresh participants reported that they "agreed" or "strongly agreed" that they and their families were buying and eating more fruits and vegetables because of the program. Similarly, 93% agreed or strongly agreed that Double Up Food Bucks helped them stretch their food budget, thereby improving food security. These survey responses give us confidence that the program is having its intended impact and that our results are similar to the results of previous incentive programs elsewhere in the country. Across all three stores, CalFresh families redeemed approximately $2,000 per week in Double Up Food Bucks during the reporting period, helping them afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Between February 21 and December 31, 2017, CalFresh families redeemed more than $85,000 in coupons, with an average value per coupon redeemed of $3.32 during that period. Over the course of this project to date, with Double Up Food Bucks operating in three stores, a total of $143,000 in incentives was distributed to CalFresh Families. This is short of our goal of distributing at least $200,000 in incentives during our first year. We attribute this shortfall, in part, to overestimating the amount of coupons that would be generated by participants. SPUR would likely have reached the overall distribution goal if we had been able to engage a fourth store in the pilot, as originally planned. We have a fourth store committed, but its on-boarding process has taken much longer than we had hoped. Goal 2: Increased sales of California grown produce at participating grocery stores, especially local produce In September we completed a historical analysis of produce sales at two of our participating stores which revealed year-over-year growth in produce sales at both stores following the launch of our program in February. Between March and December 2017, monthly produce sales were up between 3% and 25% over the same month the previous year. While the increased produce sales may not be solely due to Double Up Food Bucks, the significant year-over-year increases in several consecutive months lends confidence to our belief that the program is having the desired impact on customer behavior. Beginning in May 2017, produce managers at all three stores began meeting with staff from Community Alliance with Family Farmers, who advised each store on how to increase their procurement of local and California-grown produce. CAFF provided each store management team with recommendations of potential new vendors they could source from to increase the amount of local food the stocked on their shelves. Prior to launching Double Up Food Bucks, none of the participating grocers tracked California-grown produce apart from general produce not grown in-state. During 2018, for returning grocery stores, we are aiming for year-over-year growth in California produce, and will have the data to evaluate whether we reach that goal. For new stores, we will collect baseline data on their California-grown produce sales so that we can track change over time in the future. Goal 3: Broader and deeper support for expanding healthy food incentives statewide at grocery stores and farmers markets among policymakers, food system stakeholders, and the general public in California. The Double Up Food Bucks pilot was enthusiastically embraced by the shoppers who participated in the program. Through our customer intercept surveys, we found that 81% of CalFresh respondents who had used Double Up Food Bucks strongly desired to see the program expanded. This overwhelming response has encouraged us as we seek to expand and we aim to maintain that level of satisfaction with the program. From a grocer perspective, two stores in Santa Clara County approached us about joining the program and all our current grocers are interested in continuing it into the future. We also received interest from grocers outside our current geography, including in Davis, Chico, and Sanger, California. We have also made significant headway with policymakers. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved $30,000 in the FY 17-18 budget to support an expansion of Double Up Food Bucks. At the state level, we have had numerous conversations with the Department of Social Services about integrating incentives into the state's EBT system to make it easier to expand incentive programs further. We also saw strong interest from the media, which reflects a larger public interest in how incentives can help make healthy food more affordable while also supporting local agricultural economies. At least 9 stories appeared in media outlets, including features from Civil Eats, San Francisco Chronicle, the Gilroy Dispatch, on Sacramento's Capital Public Radio, and on NBC's and Telemundo's Comunidad Del Valle television program. Some of these stories are linked on SPUR's Double Up Food Bucks website at www.spur.org/healthyfood. Goal 4: Further refinement of bounce-back coupon incentive distribution technology. In early 2018, we successfully replicated the bounce-back coupon functionality that we developed at Arteaga's Food Center with another grocery chain. This will make it much easier to expand to any other store using NCR's ISS 45 point of sale system (which is common among independent grocers in Northern California), as we had hoped. The cost of installing the program at a store is now less than $1,000, which large stores can make up quite quickly in additional revenue earned through the program.
Publications
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Progress 05/15/16 to 05/14/17
Outputs
Target Audience:SPUR's Santa Clara County Healthy Food Incentive Grocery Project, which is also known as Double Up Food Bucks California, began distributing incentives to CalFresh families in late January 2017. At two stores, we began with a "soft-launch", where the only marketing of the program was within the grocery stores. This allowed us to test systems with real-life transactions before more broadly advertising the program's availability to the public. Three weeks later, on February 22nd, we held a kick-off event that marked our "hard launch" at all three participating grocery stores. Two stores - an Arteaga's Food Center and Food Bowl 99 - are in San Jose, CA. The third store - another Arteaga's Food Center - is in Gilroy, a small city 30 miles south of San Jose. We have targeted our outreach efforts to the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the stores, as that is the population most likely to shop at the stores. Since our launch, we have conducted outreach through a variety of channels described in the table below. In nearly all forms of our outreach, we are engaging CalFresh families in the three languages that are most common among CalFresh participants in Santa Clara County: English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Outreach Efforts Description Est. Num. of Unique Households Reached Coupon distribution/redemption within stores Number of households (based on last four digits of their EBT card) who have either earned or redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons 2,000 In-store greeters Staff from Second Harvest Food Bank spend 2 hours per week at each store greeting customers and letting them know about the program 1,200 Family Resource Centers Staff from FIRST 5 provide information about the program to their clients Data collection still pending Mailing flyers In early March, the Social Services Agency mailed a flyer about the program to the homes of families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores 22,000 Text messages In early April, the Social Services Agency sent text messages with a link to our program website to families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores 18,000 Automated telephone calls In early April, the Social Services Agency sent automated phone calls with information about our program to families & individuals participating in CalFresh (SNAP) in the zip codes adjacent to our participating stores 18,000 Double Up Food Bucks California website Unique visitors to our program website since our soft-launch on January 31, 2017 1,935 Changes/Problems:The largest problems we faced in implementing the Double Up Food Bucks pilot were technical obstacles related to setting up the point-of-sale coupon and reporting systems we needed to run the program. The issues differed by store. At Food Bowl 99, we had anticipated easily being able to duplicate a promotion program that was used at an independent grocery store in Michigan. However, a month into the project, we learned that the promotion program in Michigan was not compatible with the older version of the ACS operating system used at Food Bowl 99. It wasn't until Food Bowl 99 upgraded their entire point-of-sale system that they were able to begin offering Double Up Food Bucks. At Arteaga's, the primary delay was caused by IT contractors underperforming. SPUR attempted to find other contractors who could do the work, but we were unsuccessful in doing so. As a result, the project was delayed by five months. Combined, all the technical delays meant that we didn't launch Double Up Food Bucks until February 2017, which was six months after we had intended to begin. We are still running the pilot for nearly a full year, but it is the 2017 calendar year rather than our original plan of summer 2016 - summer 2017. One small change we have made is that, going forward, all the in-store marketing material we provide to Arteaga's will be in Spanish. We learned, after starting the pilot, that more than 90% of their customers are primarily Spanish speaking and, therefore, material printed in English provides limited benefit. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of the Double Up Food Bucks program, SPUR staff has provided training to numerous project partners. This includes cashiers at all the participating grocery stores, CalFresh benefits staff at Social Service Agency offices across the county, and local Spanish-speaking community health outreach workers (known as "promotoras") affiliated with the Food Bank. Both SPUR staff members working on this program have learned and/or sharpened skills during the pilot, including executing various types of evaluation; public speaking; media interviewing; and community outreach techniques. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We are communicating our initial results to our project advisory committee, which includes the county Social Services Agency, county Public Health Department, Second Harvest Food Bank, and FIRST 5 Santa Clara County. Additionally, we will be providing data to the Fair Food Network as well as USDA's evaluator, Westat. Fair Food Network manages a national network of projects using the Double Up Food Bucks brand and will compile our results with those of other grocery and farmers' market incentive projects. Westat is conducting the official multi-site evaluation of all FINI grantees. As we receive more detailed evaluation results from our evaluator, John Snow Inc., we will begin disseminating those with potential funders and project partners. At the conclusion of our pilot, we will release the final report through SPUR's website and reach out to media to share our findings as well. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the coming six months, SPUR is focused on maximizing the reach and impact of the Double Up Food Bucks pilot. To do that we will: - Continue working with our participating grocers to promote the program within the store as much as possible. We have found that signage in the store and outreach by store staff can have the biggest impact on customer awareness and utilization of Double Up Food Bucks - Continue community outreach - especially focused on community groups that work with low-income individuals and families near our targeted stores - Explore adding a fourth grocery store to the pilot project. We are in conversation with two different stores now and will make the decision based on whether we have the budget available to handle the store's expected volume, the demographics of the store's customer base and neighborhood, which POS system the store uses, and the store's commitment to the project. - Finish conducting the customer intercept survey. Our aim is to collect 200 survey responses from CalFresh customers at each store so that we have a representative sample of shoppers. We will review the survey findings and may make changes to our outreach strategy based on what obstacles respondents cite as reasons they have not used Double Up Food Bucks. - Increase the number of tours we give to elected officials and policymakers
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: Improved food security and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables among CalFresh families in our target neighborhoods Because Double Up Food Bucks has only been available to CalFresh families since late February, we do not yet have enough data to determine what impact we have had on food security and fruit and vegetable consumption. Our customer intercept survey, which is currently underway, is asking questions that will help us gauge this. Similarly, store sales data that we are collecting and our evaluator will be analyzing will provide another measure of our success in this regard. Looking at the limited data that we already have, however, there are strong signs that our project has been well received and is reaching thousands of families. Coupon redemption data from one of our stores, Food Bowl 99, shows that within just the first three months of the program 1,200 unique CalFresh households have redeemed Double Up Food Bucks coupons. We don't have the same unique household data analyzed yet from the other two participating stores, but given their similar levels of CalFresh usage, we anticipate that we have already reached our goal of reaching 2,000 CalFresh families in the county. Across all three stores, CalFresh families are currently redeeming approximately $2,000 per week in Double Up Food Bucks, helping them afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Between February 22nd and April 30th, CalFresh families redeemed more than 3,400 coupons. The average value of each coupon redeemed during that time was $3.41. We anticipate that the volume and average value of redemption will increase as California enters its prime growing season, during which customers will likely earn more coupons based on buying California-grown products, especially fruit. At this rate, and with three stores participating (which is one less than we had originally sought to include in the pilot), we are unsure whether we will reach our goal of distributing $200,000 in incentives. We are currently considering bringing another store into the program, which would make it more likely that we would reach that goal. Goal 2: Increased sales of California grown produce at participating grocery stores, especially local produce We are collecting store sales data to measure this aspect of our program, but our evaluator has not yet completed the analysis. However, Food Bowl 99 has anecdotally reported that they have begun switching the supply of some items (e.g. garlic) and stocking additional items (e.g. pearl onions) to maximize the amount of California-grown produce they have available in their store. The store manager reports that he has added an entire additional day of produce delivery to meet increased demand, which is a very encouraging sign. Beginning this month, produce managers at all three stores are also meeting with staff from Community Alliance with Family Farmers, who are providing technical assistance to the store to increase their procurement of local and California-grown produce. Goal 3: Broader and deeper support for expanding healthy food incentives statewide at grocery stores and farmers markets among policymakers, food system stakeholders, and the general public in California. We have seen strong interest in healthy food incentives from elected officials, grocers, and the media since launching Double Up Food Bucks in California. In the public sector, a county supervisor and city councilmember participated in our kick-off event. Congressman Jimmy Panetta took time during a Congressional recess to tour one of our participating stores, with media present. And, a county supervisor is now considering putting money from the county budget toward an extension of our project. One the private sector side, two grocery companies reached out to SPUR asking how they could join the Double Up Food Bucks pilot in the past two months. We are now actively in discussion with them regarding the feasibility of their participation. As we noted earlier, we have also seen strong interest in the media in healthy food incentives which is reflective of a larger public interest in how this policy tool can help make healthy food more affordable while also supporting local agricultural economies. Goal 4: Further refinement of bounce-back coupon incentive distribution technology. Arteaga's Food Center uses NCR's ISS 45 point of sale system and, working with store management and their IT vendor, we were able to successfully design an integrated bounce-back coupon system. Cashiers at both participating Arteaga's stores ring their customers up as normal and, if the customer has CA-grown produce in their basket and pays with SNAP, a coupon is automatically generated that matches, penny-for-penny the value of CA-grown fresh produce in the basket (up to $10). To redeem the coupon, the cashier types in a numerical code printed onto the coupon and the discount is applied to any fresh produce items the customer has purchased. SPUR worked with a custom programmer to design this system and we expect that it should be transferable to other stores at a cost of less than $1,500 per store.
Publications
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