Progress 05/15/16 to 05/14/17
Outputs
Target Audience:The Fortune Society serves over 5,000 individuals per year from across New York City. The majority of individuals served come from the following low-income neighborhoods: Harlem, Upper Manhattan; Central & East New York, Brooklyn; South & Central Bronx; and Jamaica, Queens. Most of our clients have little or no income: In 2014, 88% of Fortune's clients had less than $1,000 of income per month at intake, with 42% of our clients having no income whatsoever at intake. Along with high unemployment, housing instability, and low income, our clients also struggle with food insecurity. Our FINI Pilot Project (FPP) targeted the above referenced low-income communities of colorthat are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.Many residing in these neighborhoods speak Spanish as their primary language, and almost all of them are receiving some form of public benefits, particularly SNAP. Each year,Fortune Society prepares a zip code map detailing the New York City areas where our clients mainly reside.Using this map, we chose thezip codeswhere our clients are primarily concentratedand identified retailers inthese neighborhoods. By using this methodology, we were able to partner with retailers in Harlem, Upper Manhattan; Central & East New York, Brooklyn; and South & Central Bronx. Harlem, specifically zip code 10031, has by far the highest concentration (241) of Fortune Society clients. Although we worked with retailers in 14 different zip codes, we reasoned that we ought to concentrate our efforts in zip code 10031 and its environs. Changes/Problems:The most significant change in approach was targeting supermarkets rather than the nontraditional retailers with whom we initially partnered. As mentioned in a previous section, we service thousands of Harlem residents at our weekly cooking demos and produce giveaways. Many of these participantsexpressedinterest when we told them ofour Veggie Vouchers but were unfamiliar or uninterested with fresh food boxes, community supported agriculture or farmer's markets. Although we wanted tosupport nontraditional retailers, smallerestablishments experience greater administrative burden when conducting an incentive program. We found that supermarket infrastructure could easily absorb our requests for data, in-store programming and rate of distribution of vouchers. Although weaccomplished our goal of reaching low-income communities of our color, we thought that we could more directly reach formerly incarcerated people. In our next grant cycle, we will offer Veggie Vouchers to our formerly incarceratedclients who both receive SNAP benefits and make an initialvisit with our R.D.N. We feel this represents an excellent opportunity to gain insight and information about consumption and purchase of fruits and vegetables by this very specific population. Finally, we intend to make several changes to our study design. If resources are available, it may be helpful to have Fortune staff available to administer the survey, rather than relying on cashiers to do so, to ensure validity of data collected. Moreover, it would behelpful if Fortune staff were also available to enter the data on an on-going basis in order to have a more robust sample to analyze.Also, the survey, which was actually located on the voucher itself hada fewlimitations.Most importantly, we did not askfor household size.Nevertheless participants did purchase significantly more fruits and vegetables with the voucher than they did at the initial purchase,representingan increase. Asking for household size will help us further evaluate how much of an increaseat the individual level took place. Future evaluationswill alsoseek to analyze more long-term impact of the program in individuals' consumption of fruits and vegetables. Finally, future surveys should include questions regarding existing barriers to vegetables in particular. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Certainly a professional developmentoppportunity exists in developing nutrition education curriculaand counseling skills catered specifically to the Spanish-speaking population who redeemed the majority of our vouchers. We found through analysis of initial receipt data that indeed traditional Caribbean fruits and vegetables like avocado and yucca were the primary types of fruits and vegetables purchased. Additionally, when issued the Veggie Vouchers, the majority of consumers increased their purchase of fruit fivefold, while theypurchased 1.5 the amountof vegetables after receiving the Veggie Vouchers. Therefore, it seems that there is a much lower barrier to fruit consumption than vegetable consumption in this population. Further knowledge and skills to motivate this specific population to eat more of their traditional vegetables would be advantageous. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have not yet disseminated the results of this research but do fully intend to do soas our research grows in our upcoming grant cycle. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We increased purchase and consumption of fruits and vegetables by low-income consumersthrough our Veggie Voucher program. When they spent $25 using EBT, consumers receiveda $25 Veggie Vouchers to spend on fruits and vegetablesat point of purchase. All 2800 vouchers were redeemed at our retail partnerslocated throughout the New York City zip codes where our clients predominantly reside. Harlem has the largest concentration of our clients -- 84% of allwe serve in Manhattan. As a function of this concentration, 71% of our vouchers were redeemed at the Harlem supermarketFood Universe. As such,Food Universe was the focus of our data analysis performed by Fortune's Evaluation and Quality Improvement (EQI)team. We collected receipts from the initial ortrigger purchase and the subsequent receipt received after consumers received the Veggie Voucher.These receipts and the voucher which also contained a brief survey were stapled together at point of purchase andreturned to us.Of the 2,000 vouchers used at Food Universe,EQI arrived at asample of size of 223. Seventy-five percent of the 223 individuals who redeemed voucherswere Spanish speaking and all participants report living in Harlem. Because the receipt data did not contain cup amounts, we had to convert this data into cups in order to compare purchase amounts with survey data. To do so, we used either the food count, food weight, or price information, and converting the data to cups by using information from the USDA on counts per cup, weights per cup, or price per cup. Paired-sample t-tests were ran to assess the relationship between total cups of fruit and vegetables purchased at initial and voucher purchase, as well as to assess the relationship between amount spent on fruits and vegetables at initial and voucher purchase. As reported below in Table 1, there were increases on average in all variables from initial to voucher purchase. Additionally, all of these difference were statistically significant. Table 1 Fruit Purchased in Cups, Vegetables Purchased in Cups, and Amount Spent on Fruits and Vegetables by Initial and Voucher Purchase Initial Purchase Voucher Purchase t df Cups of Fruit Purchased 5.53 (9.04) 28.92 (15.59) -19.26* 194 Cups of Vegetables Purchase 11.17 (16.33) 16.79 (14.85) -3.45** 194 Amount Spent in Dollars 8.83 11.14 24.98 3.53 -19.85* 194 Note. Standard Deviations appear in parentheses below means *= p <.001, **=p<.01 On average, participants did purchase significantly more fruits and vegetables with the voucher than they did at the initial point of purchase, demonstrating the success of the programs goal to increase purchase amounts of fruits and vegetables, and likely the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. We alsowanted to investigate the relationship between individual's perceptions of their own eating habits and purchasing patterns. Toward that end, we issued a survey and then compared the survey responses to data from the receipts collected. Thesurveyasked the following questions: How many cups of vegetables do you eat each day? How many pieces of fruit do you eat each day How much do you spend on fruits and vegetables weekly In general, inconsistencies were found in participants' reported consumption of fruits and vegetables on the surveys, and the amount the purchased in cups initially. Table 2 Receipt Data Descriptive Statistics (N=195) Purchase Data M Minimum Maximum SD Total Cups of Fruit Purchased - Initial Purchase* 5.53 0.00 44.97 9.04 Total Cups of Fruit Purchased - Voucher Purchase** 28.92 0.00 75.47 15.59 Total Cups of Vegetables Purchased - Initial Purchase* 11.17 0.00 124.05 16.33 Total Cups of Vegetables Purchased - Voucher Purchase** 16.79 0.00 100.63 14.85 Total Cups of Fruits and Vegetables Purchased - Initial Purchase* 16.70 0.00 169.02 22.23 Total Cups of Fruits and Vegetables Purchased - Voucher Purchase** 45.71 13.29 111.16 15.46 Total Spent on Fruit in Dollars - Initial Purchase* 2.49 0.00 25.32 4.08 Total Spent on Fruit in Dollars - Voucher Purchase** 15.81 0.00 30.44 7.27 Total Spent on Vegetables in Dollars - Initial Purchase* 6.34 0.00 56.04 8.47 Total Spent on Vegetables in Dollars - Voucher Purchase** 9.17 0.00 25.89 6.60 Total Spent on Fruit and Vegetables in Dollars - Initial Purchase* 8.83 0.00 81.36 11.14 Total Spent on Fruit and Vegetables in Dollars - Voucher Purchase** 24.98 6.34 36.66 3.53 *Initial Purchase is the purchase made prior to using the voucher. **Voucher Purchase is the purchase made with the voucher. Finally, it bears mention that although Food Universe was the subject of our expanded analysis, our other retail partners also reported significantly increased sales and consumption of fruits and vegetables as reported by their EBT customers in the period during which they distributed Veggie Vouchers compared to the same period in the following year. Specifically, East New York Farms reported a 51.5% increasein sales and GrowNYC anecdotally reported a similar increase. While we have provided concrete data above, it also be statedthat retailers continually shared anecdotes about the excitement in the community around the Veggie Voucher program. The supermarket reported a significant increase in new customersfollowing asudden flood of phone calls about Veggie Vouchers. Our Fresh Food Box partners reported that many were able to participate who could not afford to in the past. In general, we found the Veggie Voucher program to be a positive one for retailers, customers and for us. Toward our second goal of increasing knowledge offruits and vegetables' importance to overall health, we facilitated 14 nutrition education workshops, provided 20,008 pounds offresh produce to5002 people at the45 cooking demos conducted at our location. Our cooking demos became an excellent opportunity to spread the word about Veggie Vouchers in Harlem. We also began conducting in-store cooking demos where our community chef would get the store's weekly circular and prepare recipes that featured fresh vegetables that were on sale that week. She would make special effort to demonstrate recipes that were familiar to this primarily Spanish-speaking audience. In fact, all of our program and materials were offered in English and Spanish and featured recipes that were familiar to our audience.
Publications
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