America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative: Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund

America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative: Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund is sponsored by Healthy Food Financing Initiative, Reinvestment Fund, and USDA Rural Development. Provides capital investments and technical assistance to enterprises working to increase fresh, healthy food access and overcome barriers to entry in food retail supply chains within rural and economically distressed areas.

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Since it first started in 1905, this family-owned business in rural Holmes County has produced custom feed mix and bulk feed for local livestock and poultry farmers...

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Healthy Food Financing Initiative # Healthy Food Financing Initiative * Current Job Opportunities * Rural Business-Cooperative Service * Rural Business-Cooperative Service Contacts * Lender List & Performance Data * Rural Housing Service Contacts * Rural Utilities Service * Rural Utilities Service Contacts * Equal Employment Opportunity Branch * Program Compliant Processing and Resolution Branch * Program Compliance and Training Branch * Limited English Proficiency * Innovation Center Divisions * Healthy Food Financing Initiative * Interagency Working Group on Cooperative Development * Loans and Guaranteed Loans * Publications & Information * Substantially Underserved Trust Area (SUTA) * Cybersecurity for Water and Wastewater Systems * Tribal Relations & Technical Assistance ## Healthy Food Financing Initiative America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) is a public-private partnership administered by Reinvestment Fund, a national mission-driven community development financial institution, on behalf of USDA Rural Development.

HFFI was established by the 2014 Farm Bill and reauthorized in 2018. HFFI provides financial and technical assistance, either directly or through other partners and intermediaries, to eligible fresh, healthy food retailers and food retail supply chain enterprises to overcome the higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved areas.

### Healthy Food Financing Fact Sheet Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Grants The Healthy Food Financing Initiative To date, HFFI has awarded over $25 million in funding directly to 162 food retail and food retail supply chain projects through the HFFI Targeted Small Grants Program. These projects have been located in 48 states, in addition to Washington DC and Puerto Rico.

In 2024, an additional $40 million was awarded in grants to 16 public-private partnerships through the HFFI Local and Regional Healthy Food Financing Partnerships Program to support the creation of a new or expansion of an existing Food Financing Program. These Food Financing Programs will serve 20 states and involve 75 partners. _**To learn more about the**__**history and impact of America’s HFFI.

**_ The HFFI Program provides funding to eligible organizations that are working to plan or develop a food retail outlet or food supply chain business model that will improve access to staple and perishable foods in underserved areas through SNAP eligible food retailers.

Eligible underserved areas include: * USDA’s 2019 USDA Low Income Low Access census tracts * Census tracts with median family incomes less than or equal to 120 percent of area median family income that are adjacent to USDA’s 2019 LILA census tracts * Geographic Areas that meet the criteria as having low access to supermarkets or grocery stores through a methodology that has been adopted for use by another government or philanthropic healthy food initiative or demonstrates other criteria describing low access to supermarkets or grocery stores for an underserved community.

_**Additional info on eligibility, including**__**an eligibility map**_. * **Building a Cooperative Food Market in North Flint, Michigan** _The 2014 Flint Water Crisis, compounded by the closure of two major grocery stores by 2015, left North Flint residents exposed to dangerous levels of lead and without access to affordable, fresh food.

_ * **Reinvestment Fund’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative is Expanding Food Access in the Southeast** _When the small “farmers market” style store that served the Oxford, Mississippi community for over 30 years closed in 2016, the neighborhood was left with limited access to fresh foods. Chicory Market, a full-service community grocery store, took over the space in 2017.

_ * **A New Food Retailer, People’s Harvest Community Grocery Store, to Expand Healthy Food Access in North County** _Erica Williams founded A Red Circle, a North St. Louis County, Missouri-based nonprofit, in 2017. _ * Report Fraud on USDA Contracts * Architectural Barriers Act * USDA Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement * Non-Discrimination Statement Rural Development U.S. Department of Agriculture