Progress 09/01/19 to 09/24/24
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached by the Double Up program during the project period were Utahns receiving SNAP that were able to access a farmers market, CSA or farm stand redemption site. The majority of these sites are located in urban/suburban areas in the Salt Lake Valley, although we were able increase redemption sites in rural areas by the the end of the project periiod. Many of the SNAP customers in these areas are from marginalized communities, particularly the Hispanic and refugee populations. Changes/Problems:We ended the project period underspent on our grant funds. This was a result of COVID programming delays and challeges getting Double Up off the ground in grocery. Despite this we accomplished so much during our grant period and the program as grown in so many ways. We are proud that our program is now much more widely known and the brand is recognized across the state and we have built some solid foundations for double up to be implemented in grocery in the near future. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Community Food Security Program staff provided training to market managers on how to implement the Double Up program including how to work with vendors accepting Double Up incentives. Staff provided additional training on using the Produce Pathplatform for data reporting. Our program staff organized three onboarding training sessions to farmers market and farm stand staff participating in the Double Up program. These training sessions included information on how to implement the program as well as how to make markets more welcoming to SNAP populations and provided troubleshooting and technical assistance for markets experiencing issues or roadblocks. Staff expanded the use of the Google drive folder for market managers, which was created in response to feedback in 2023, for easy access to all program materials, training and resources on implementing Double Up. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Community Food Security Program works with a large network of diverse partners that includes anti-hunger advocates, program participants, academic institutions, local government agencies and other stakeholders. We regularly send program updates to partners throughout the year. We also provided regular program updates to the Utah Food Security Council.We will be sharing out the end of season market manager survey results with market managers and other stakeholders before the end of the calendar year. 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: The amount of incentives spent on qualifying fruits and vegetables in the final year of the project periodwas $211,225.33. We offered a microgrant for small producer growersselling at Double Up markets-We were able to distribute $30,000 of funds to 8 small scale fruit and vegetable producers across the state for season extension projects, hydroponic growing operations, packaging and storage, tools, and investment in perennial food plants. Goal 2: The total number of transactions were 8,015. DHHS and program partners expanded thecomprehensive marketing strategy in 2024 includeding creating animated videos on how to use Double Up at the market. Our team is pleased to find that Double Up has become a more widely recognized program among community stakeholders working with SNAP populations around the state. Years of consistent messaging, logo usage and outreach seem to be paying off in familiarity with the program. Goal 3: The number of firms implementing the Double Up increased to51different locations in 2024vs 44locations in 2023. These locations span 14 of the 29 counties in Utah. Goal 4: We have continued to require participating firms to track weekly market data using the Produce Path (formarlyFM Tracks) web application. That application was purchased by new administrators and we have been working with the new administrator team to solve some of the limitations of the current application. On a more analog note, the program epanded thepilotuse of a $5 token in addition to the $1 tokens that we have been using since the program's inception in Utah. This was spurred by issues with markets running out of tokens part way through the season because participants were saving them up to spend later on in the season. The team hoped that the addition of the $5 token would help alleviate this problem by increasing the amount of Double Up redemption value in circulation and benefit participants and market managers from having to manage less individual tokens. This mitigated all token shortage issues.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached by the Double Up program this year were Utahns receiving SNAP that were able to access a farmers market, CSA or farm stand redemption site. The majority of these sites are located in urban/suburban areas in the Salt Lake Valley, although we were able include more markets this year that are located in rural/frontier areas of Utah than in previous years. Many of the SNAP customers in these areas are from marginalized communities, particularly the Hispanic and refugee populations. Changes/Problems: Our team has worked tirelessly over the last 4 years to get the Double Up program up and operating in grocery in Utah.We have had great success with developing partnerships with multiple grocery stores and getting to the contract negotiation point with those stores. We continue to run into the sameroad blockswith successfully onboarding grocery retailers however.The lack of ability forPOS systems to recognize the method of payment before the transaction is complete continues to be a major roadblock for grocers to actually be able to allow customers to earn and redeem Double Up incentives. We have also run into issues with corporate restrictions being incompatible with DUFB implementation and reporting in larger stores/chains. Finally, larger stores seem to view the cost/benefit ratio of implementing the program not worth it. This past year we have forged a partnership with Whole Foods and are close to launching our Double Up program in all 4 or thier UT stores. Additionally, we have shifted gears andlpursingsmaller, independent stores in rural or lower access areas of the statein hopes that these stores can be more nimble. As far as our market program goes- we have seen great sucess despite a somewhat rocky farmers market landscape in Utah. There is a shortage of local vendors to serve all of the farmers markets and this makes it harder for newer markets to thrive because of a lack of produce venders on site or enough variety to draw people to the market. This is a recognized, statewide problem that we are partnering with the Utah Farmers MarketNetwork and the Utah Department of Ag as well as other stakeholdersto address. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Community Food Security Program staff provided training to market managers on how to implement the Double Up program including how to work with vendors accepting DoubleUp incentives. Staff provided additional training on using the FM Tracks platform for data reporting.Our program staff organized three onboarding training sessions to farmers market and farm stand staff participating in the Double Up program. These training sessions included information on how to implement the program as well as how to make markets more welcoming to SNAP populations and provided troubleshooting and technical assistance for markets experiencing issues or roadblocks.Staff expanded the use of the Google drive folder for market managers,which was created in response to feedback in 2022, for easy access to all program materials, training and resources on implementing Double Up. Our program staff collaborated with the USU FMPP team to maintain a statewide farmers market manager listserv to quickly and efficiently disseminate relevant information to the Farmers Market staff across the state. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Community Food Security Program works with a large network of diverse partners that includes anti-hunger advocates, program participants, academic institutions, local government agencies and other stakeholders. We regularly send program updates to partners throughout the year. We also provided quarterly program updates and an end of season report to the legislative and voting members of the Local Food Advisory Council, a legislative advisory council for the Food and Agriculture Committee of the Utah State Legislature. Monthly program updates and end of season results were also presented to the Salt Lake City Food Policy Council. A new state council was codified in 2022, the Utah Food Security Council, and program updates are also disseminated with members of that council. We will be sharing out the end of season market manager survey results with market managers and other stakeholdersbefore the end of the calendar year. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Goal 1. We will continue efforts to support current markets and produce growers to offer eligible produce that is culturally relevant at participating firms and to continue to expand participating locations to reach additional customers. Goal 2. We will continue to refine our marketing strategy based on evaluation results solicited from participant data collection and market manager surveys to reach as many eligible customers as possible. We also plan to spned extra time working to conducct outreach in geographic areas that have significant SNAP populations but see a low turn out at the market. Goal 3. We will continue to pursue implementation in grocery and contuinue conduting outreach to farmers markets, farm stands and CSAs Goal 4: We will continue to refine our reporting process with market managers and to work with the FM Tracks team to give feedback to improve the product. We will also continue to refine the redemption process as we solicit feedback from market managers.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: (Our tracking period for year 4was November 1, 2022- October 31, 2023when the summer market season ended).The amount of incentives spent on qualifying fruits and vegetables was$142,233.We offereda Mirco-grant againto support small scale producers selling at Double Up-participating markets to grow additional produce including more varieties. We were able to distribute $30,000 of funds to 8 small scale fruit and vegetable producers across the state forseason extension projects, hydroponic growing operations, packaging and storage, tools, and investment in perennial food plants. Goal 2:The total number of transactions were 6,814. DHHS and program partners implemented a comprehensive marketing strategy in 2023 similar to the marketing strategy we have implemented in past years outlined in our core marketing strategy. Ourteam is pleased to find that Double Up has become a more widely recognized program among community stakeholders working with SNAP populations around the state. Years of consistent messaging, logo usage and outreach seem to be paying off in familiarity with the program. The total number of transactions were 6,814. Goal 3: The number of firms implementing the Double Up shifted to 44 different locations in 2023 vs 49 locations in 2022. These locations span 14 of the 29 counties in Utah. There are several reasons for this slight decrease. Farmers markets in Utah tend to be somewhat volatile- meaning that many only last a year or two before closing down and new ones continue to pop up. This makes it an ongoing jobfor the Community Food Security Team to be reaching out to new markets to enroll them in the program and to understand that the landscape of markets changes from year to year. There has only been one market that dropped out of the program (versus ceased to operate) and that is the market in Summit County, Utah. This market operated Double Up for several years but had consistent difficulty in attracting SNAP customers despite the known SNAP population in that area. This is a unique county that is home to several of Utah's ski resorts andto a very high income population overall. There are low income populations that live in the county, but may be accustomed to receivingservices in the urban Salt Lake country because of the close proximity. The team has been and will continue to work with Summit Co staff to strategize how to better reach the SNAP population in that area. Goal 4: We have continued to require participating firms to track weekly market data using the FM Tracks web application. That application was purchased by new administrators and we have been working with the new administrator team to solve some of the limitations of the current application. On a more analog note, the program team decided to pilot the use of a $5 token in addition to the $1 tokens that we have been using since the program's inception in Utah. This was spurred by issues with markets running out of tokens part way through the season because participants were saving them up to spend later on in the season. The team hoped that the addition of the $5 token wouldhelp alleviatethis problem by increasing the amount of Double Up redemption value in circulation and benefit participants and market managers from having to manage less individual tokens. The preliminary feedback about the change has been very positive and the team plans to utilizethem again next year.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached by the Double Up program this year were Utahns receiving SNAP that were able to access a farmers market or farm stand redemption site. The majority of these sites are located in urban/suburban areas in the Salt Lake Valley, although more markets this year are located in rural/frontier areas of Utah than in previous years. Many of the SNAP customers in these areas are from marginalized communities, particularly the Hispanic and refugee populations. Changes/Problems:We have run into some road blocks with successfully onboarding grocery retailers to be able to implement Double Up. We have been in conversation with several enthusiastic grocers, however the lack of ability for most POS systems to recognize the method of payment before the transaction is complete continues to be a major roadblock for grocers to actually be able to allow customers to earn and redeem Double Up incentives. We have also run into issues with corporate restrictions being incompatible with DUFB implementation and reporting in larger stores/chains. We plan to pursue smaller, independent stores in the coming year in hopes to side step that issue. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?UDOH program staff provided training to market managers on how to use the FM Tracks platform. Our program staff organized three onboarding training sessions to farmers market and farm stand staff participating in the Double Up program. These trainings included information on how to implement the program as well as how to make markets more welcoming to SNAP populations. OIn response to feedback, we created a Google drive folder for market managers for easy access to all program materials, training and resources on implementing Double Up. Our program staff collaborated with the USU FMPP team to maintain a statewide farmers market manager listserve to quickly and efficiently disseminate relevant information to the Farmers Market staff across the state. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have a large network of diverse partners that includes anti- hunger advocates, program participants, academic institutions, local government agencies and other stakeholders. We regularly send program updates to partners throughout the year. We also provided quarterly program updates and an end of season report to the legislative and voting members of the Local Food Advisory Council, a legislative advisory council for the Food and Agriculture Committee of the Utah State Legislature. Monthly program updates and end of season results were also presented to the Salt Lake City Food Policy Council. A new state council was codified in 2022, the Food Security Council and program updates were also shared with members of this council. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Goal 1. We will continue efforts to support current markets and produce growers to offer eligible produce that is culturally relevant at participating firms and to continue to expand participating locations to reach additional customers. Goal 2. We will continue to refine our marketing strategy based on evaluation results solicited from participant data collection and market manager surveys to reach as many eligible customers as possible. We also plan to work with a program partner to increase general outreach for SNAP enrollment in Utah. Goal 3. We will continue to pursue implementation in grocery and add additional direct market firms in year 3. Goal 4: We will continue to refine our reporting process with market managers and to work with the FM Tracks team to give feedback to improve the product for our purposes. We will also continue to seek creative solutions for grocery firms to be able to offer Double Up at check out.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: (Our tracking period for year 3 was November 1, 2021- October 31, 2022 when the summer market season ended).The amount of incentives spent on qualifying fruits and vegetables increased from $144,267 in year 2 to $159,654 in year 3. We implemented a Mirco-grant to support producers selling at Double Up-participating markets to grow additional produce including more varieties. We were able to distribute $30,000 of funds to small scale fruit and vegetable producers across the state. Goal 2: DHHS and program partners implemented a comprehensive marketing strategy in 2022. We found that although we did not increase the number of unique participants visiting the markets (7,388 in 2021 vs 6,816 in 2022), participants spent more on produce than in previous years. Goal 3: The number of firms implementing the Double Up program increased from 22 in year 1 to 30 firms in year 3 with 49 different locations. We were able to effectively engage these markets with the partnership of the Utah State University FMPP team and the Farmers Market Network that was created as part of that grant project. We were also able to support markets in joining the Double Up program by offering capacity building grants to cover staff time, infrastructure, materials and EBT terminal costs. $52,000 was awarded to 20 markets. Goal 4: During the Year 1 market season, we piloted the FM Tracks digital application in all Farmers Markets and Farm Stand firms participating in the Double Up program. This was a big change for market managers from the pen and paper tracking system used in previous years. Market staff were given iPads and trained on how to use the app. They were required to collect customer data at the time of EBT transaction and submit incentive redemption data on a weekly basis. This allowed us to have a much better understanding of program utilization throughout the market season than in previous years. In year 3 we required all firms to track vendor reimbursements each week on the app, which improved our internal tracking processes and end of season financial reconciliation. This also allowed us to comply more easily with the core evaluation data requirements and submit monthly and quarterly reports to the GusNIP NTAE center. We also collaborated with USU Extension to offer incentives to market managers to complete an end of year survey about DUFB implementation which increased our responses from 10 in 2021 to 19 in 2022.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached by the Double Up program this year were Utahns receiving SNAP that were able to access a farmers market or farm stand redemption site. The majority of these sites are located in urban/suburban areas in the Salt Lake Valley and some markets are located in rural/frontier areas of Utah. Many of the SNAP customers in these areas are from marginalized communities, particularly the Hispanic and refugee populations. Changes/Problems:We have run into some road blocks with successfulling onboarding grocery retailers to be able to implement Double Up. We have been in conversation with several enthusiastic grocers, however the lack of ability for most POS systems to recognized the method of payment before the transaction is complete is a major roadblock for grocers to actually be able to allow customers to earn and redeem Double Up incentives. We have been in close conversation with NGA about this issue- one that many others seem to be encoutering across the country. We hope that there will be a more national effort to solve this on a larger scale and make the program more accessible to interested grocers. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?UDOH program staff in collaboration with Wholesome Wave provided training to market managers on how to use the FM Tracks platform. Our program staff organized threeonboarding trainings to farmers market and farm stand staff participating in the Double Up program. These trainings included information on how to implement the program as well as how to make markets more welcoming to SNAP populations. Our program staff collaborated with the USU FMPP team maintained astatewide farmers market manager listserve to quicklyand efficiently disseminate relevant information to the Farmers Market staff across the state. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have a large network of diverse partners through UPIC (the Utah Produce Incentive Collaborative) that includes food security and hunger advocates, program participants, academic institutions, and other stakeholders. We regularly send program updates to UPIC partners throughout the year. We also provided quarterly program updates and an end of season report to the legislative and voting members of the Local Food Advisory Council, a legislative advisory council for the Food and Agriculture Committee of the Utah State Legislature. Monthly program updates and end of season results were also presented to the Salt Lake City Food Policy Council which includes the Mayor of Salt Lake City and prominent city/county officials. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Goal 1. We will continue efforts to support markets and produce growers to offer eligible produce that is culturally relevent at participating firms. Goal 2. We will continue to refine our marketing strategy based on evlauation results solicited from particpant data collection and market manager surveys to reach as many eligible customers as possible. Goal 3. We will continue to pursuse implementation in grocery and add additional direct market firms in year 3. We have already generated interest from 4 additional firms for the 2022 season. Goal 4. We will continue to refine our data collection procesess. We will also continue to work with NGA and interested grocery partners to solve POS-related hurdles to grocery implementation.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: (Since we did not receive GusNIP funding until April 2020, the year 1 "market season" or tracking period was May 1, 2020 though October 31, 2020 when our summer market ends and year 2 was November 1,2020- October 31, 2021 when the summer market season ended). The amount of incentives spent on qualifying fruits and vegetables increase from $103,602 in year 1 to $144,267 year 2. We implemented a Mirco-grant to supportproducers selling at Double Up-participating markets to grow additional produce includung more varieties. We were able to distribute $45,000 of funds to small scale fruit and vegetable producers. Goal 2: UDOH and program partners implemented a comprhensive marketing strategy, increasing the number of unique Double Up participants from 5322 in year 1(2020 season) to 7388 in year 2 (2021 season). Goal 3: The nunmber of firmsimplementing the Double Up program increased from 22 in year 1 to . This number was set to be higher but we had several farmers markets unable to open due to COVID-19. Five of the participating firms had never offered SNAP or participated in the DUFB before. We were able to effectively engage these markets with the partnership of the USU FMPP team and the Farmers Market Network that was created as part of that grant project. We were also able to support markets in joining the Double Up program by offering capacity building grants to cover staff time, infrastructure, materials and EBT terminal costs. $25,858 was awarded to 14 markets. The USU FMPP team created a guide for CSAs to take SNAP benefits and held 3 in-person trainings with direct to market producers. Goal 4: During the Year 1 market season, we piloted the FM Tracks digital application in all Farmers Markets and Farm Stand firms participating in the Double Up program. This was a big change for market managers from the pen and paper tracking system used in previous years. Market staff were given iPads and trained on how to use the app. They were required to collect customer data at the time of EBT transaction and submit incentive redemption data on a weekly basis. This allowed us to have a much better understanding of program utilization throughout the market season than in previous years. This also allowed us to comply with the core evaluation data requirements and submit monthly and quarterly reports to the GusNIP NTAE center. We also collaborated with the USU Extension evaluation team to conduct customer intercept surveys to obtain customer-level data as part of these core data requirements. We had to find creative ways to conduct the surveys because of COVID restrictions on staff being on-site at markets. DUFB customers received a collapsable straw as an incentive to sign up for emails and they were then emailed a link to the Qulatics survey. We received 60 responses.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience reached by the Double Up program this year were Utahns receiving SNAP that were able to access a farmers market or farm stand redemption site. The majority of these sites are located in urban/suburban areas in the Salt Lake Valley and some markets are located in rural/frontier areas of Utah. Many of the SNAP customers in these areas are from marginalized communities, particularly the Hispanic and refugee populations. Changes/Problems:The program experienced an extreme delay in the receipt of funding, which created significant challenges and changes to our year one timeline. Funding was delayed by nearly 9 months, from September to mid April, which delayed the process of onboarding firms and getting firms approved to participate by FNS. This delay in getting firms approved impacted our ability to spend state funds, which has the potential to jeopardize our ability to receive state funding for this program in the future. During this period, it was extremely difficult to contact NIFA for guidance or assistance leaving program staff unsure of how to move forward with challenges. This lack of communication has been a hindrance to getting program questions clarified in a timely manner. COVID-19 was also a barrier for us during Year 1. In Utah, there was uncertainty about if markets would be allowed to open. As a result, the program dedicated much of our staff time in the spring to working with state and local agencies to ensure markets would be able to safely run during the 2020 season. Due to the extreme pressure put on grocery stores this year, our grocery retail partners required we pause our work on implementing grocery retail in Utah. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?UDOH program staff in collaboration with Wholesome Wave to train how to use the FM Tracks platform. Our program staff organized two onboarding trainings to farmers market and farm stand staff participating in the Double Up program. These trainings included information on how to implement the program as well as how to make markets more welcoming to SNAP populations. Our program staff collaborated with the USU FMPP team to create a statewide farmers market manager listserve to quickly and efficiently disseminate relevant information to the Farmers Market staff across the state. A free, four-part webinar series was hosted via the network on topics such as: 'Accepting SNAP as a Direct Marketing Farmers in Utah', 'How SNAP works for CSAs', How SNAP Works for Farm Stands and Farm Stores', and 'Choosing, Using & Funding POS Equipment'. This series gathered national attendance and created the opportunity for collaborative problem solving with markets in other states. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have a large network of diverse partners through UPIC (the Utah Produce Incentive Collaborative) that includes food security and hunger advocates, program participants, academic institutions, and other stakeholders. We regularly send program updates to UPIC partners throughout the year. We also provided quarterly program updates and an end of season report to the legislative and voting members of the Local Food Advisory Council, a legislative advisory council for the Food and Agriculture Committee of the Utah State Legislature. Monthly program updates and end of season results were also presented to the Salt Lake City Food Policy Council which includes the Mayor of Salt Lake City and prominent city/county officials. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Goal 1: In Year 2, we will implement a Producer Micro-grant program to help support small produce vendors that sell at Double Up firms. The intent of the micro-grant is to support smaller producers to grow more produce and/or more varieties of produce that leads to a wider selection of produce available for Double Up participants to purchase. We will also be focusing our efforts on adding grocery retailers as Double Up firms. We anticipate that having more options available for Double Up redemption should allow participants to spend more of their SNAP dollars on produce year round. Goal 2: In Year 2, we will utilize FM Tracks to better understand what marketing efforts are most effective. We will continue to use the survey feature to ask participants how they heard about the program as well as better understand the demographics of the participant population. We will use this information to continue to refine our marketing strategy in order to reach more potential participants. As we add grocery retail sites we will tailor our marketing strategy to additionally reach participants they cannot or will not access the program at farmers markets, farm stands or CSAs. Goal 3: In Year 2 we will focus on recruiting at least 1 grocery retailer to participate as a redemption site for the Double Up program. As previously mentioned this became a challenge due to the grocery industry's focus on COVID-19, however we have returned to conversations with retailers at the end of Year 1. Having grocery firms onboard will provide more retail sites and that with more days open and longer hours. We will also continue to engage Farmers Markets and Farm Stands that are currently not accepting SNAP or implementing the Double Up program and we will engage more CSAs through partnership with the USU FMPP team. Goal 4: The FM Tracks pilot in Year 1 was successful and we gathered a lot of feedback about how to improve utilization of the app. In Year 2, we will address technical issues that markets ran into and we will take advantage of additional functions of the app that were not utilized in Year 1. This will bolster our ability to collect more data, better ensure the quality of the data and allow data to be more readily available throughout the market season. As we add grocery retail firms to the Double Up program we will be working with grocery to develop methods of redemption within the restrictions of the firm's POS system. We are planning to work with Kroger stores and this should help streamline the process of implementing Double Up with other Kroger stores around the country.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: During the 2020 market season, we were able to pilot the FM Tracks online reporting application to track Double Up customer data and utilization of the Double Up incentive. Since we did not receive GusNIP funding until April 2020, the year 1 "market season" or tracking period was May 1, 2020 though October 31, 2020 when our summer market ends. Our markets redeemed a total of $103,969.00 in Double Up incentive during the year 1 market season. We had a total of 5325 transactions which means participants spent an average of $19.50 on produce per transaction. The maximum amount participants could have spent per transaction was $30.00. Goal 2: During the Year 1 market season we had 2,124 new Double Up users, 1,091 returning users and 114 anonymous users (meaning they could be new or returning because they did not want to share any information). We partnered with the Utah State University Extension Farmers Market Promotion Program (USU FMPP) team to collaborate on marketing efforts that highlighted both SNAP and Double Up at farmers markets. The year 1 market seasons included: -Bus ads on ten buses in four counties -Direct mailers to 43,748 SNAP households within five miles of a farmers markets and farm stands in urban/suburban areas and 30 miles in rural/frontier counties. -Printed 11x17 posters and 5x8 tear off pads were sent to 39 partners across the state that interacted with the SNAP population. Due to COVID-19, electronic copies were distributed through newsletters and emails by partners as well. -Three digital marketing companies ran ads in three different geographic locations. One targeted people in zip codes in the Salt Lake area with high percentages of SNAP recipients. It reached 305,896 impressions and resulted in 257 clicks. Another focused ads on a local news website, KSL.com. This ad had 555,271 impressions resulting in 503 clicks to the website. The third company used digital ads and an article in St. George News resulting in 100,010 impressions and 136 clicks to the website. -Eight Facebook/Instagram ads (4 in English and 4 in Spanish) were posted and had 3,672,653 impressions and 2,381 link clicks -Two YouTube ads, one in English and one in Spanish, which together had 323,181 impressions and 56,442 views. -Two ads (one in English and one in Spanish) with four radio media companies totaling in 1,268 radio spots. Goal 3: During the Year 1 market season we had 22 firms implementing the Double Up program. This number was set to be higher but we had several farmers markets unable to open due to COVID-19. Five of the participating firms had never offered SNAP or participated in the DUFB before. We were able to effectively engage these markets with the partnership of the USU FMPP team and the Farmers Market Network that was created as part of that grant project. We were also able to support markets in joining the Double Up program by offering capacity building grants to cover staff time, infrastructure, materials and EBT terminal costs. $25,858 was awarded to 14 markets. The USU FMPP team created a guide for CSAs to take SNAP benefits and held 3 in-person trainings with direct to market producers. During Year 1 we identified at least 1 grocery retailer that we planned to work with to implement the Double Up program. However, due to the extreme delay in funding and the COVID-19 pandemic this was pushed to Year 2. Goal 4: During the Year 1 market season, we piloted the FM Tracks digital application in all Farmers Markets and Farm Stand firms participating in the Double Up program. This was a big change for market managers from the pen and paper tracking system used in previous years. Market staff were given iPads and trained on how to use the app. They were required to collect customer data at the time of EBT transaction and submit incentive redemption data on a weekly basis. This allowed us to have a much better understanding of program utilization throughout the market season than in previous years. This also allowed us to comply with the core evaluation data requirements and submit monthly and quarterly reports to the GusNIP NTAE center. We also collaborated with the USU Extension evaluation team to conduct customer intercept surveys to obtain customer-level data as part of these core data requirements. We had to find creative ways to conduct the surveys because of COVID restrictions on staff being on-site at markets. DUFB customers received a collapsable straw as an incentive to sign up for emails and they were then emailed a link to the Qulatics survey. We received 60 responses.
Publications
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