Nutritious donations are more important than ever: 60 million people turned to the charitable food system in 2020. Food banks rely on retail and distributor donations for about 30 percent of inventory, and often receive unwanted unhealthy food, like soda and candy. This resource was developed to help food retailers and distributors donate more nutritious More
SWAP was developed in 2016 and revised in 2020 to align with the Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System. Revised tools include: SWAP Toolkit SWAP and Alignment with the HER Nutrition Guidelines SWAP: Overview of a Stoplight Nutrition System for Food Banks and Food Pantries Steps for Getting Started Using SWAP More
The USDA Online Purchasing Pilot, which allows SNAP participants to shop and pay for groceries online, rapidly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 2020 to March 2021, the number of participating states increased from 5 to 47. This brief assesses whether the Pilot promotes healthy food access (using the criteria of availability and utilization) More
The overall goal of this study is to develop a Healthy Charitable Foods Index that can be used by food banks to translate the pounds by category values into a value that corresponds meaningfully to the USDA’s Healthy Eating Index (HEI) scores. The subrecipient will compare a set of foods in the charitable food system More
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, is associated with improved healthy food and beverage access due to its requirement for minimum stock of healthy foods and beverages in WIC-eligible stores. The selection and authorization criteria used to authorize WIC vendors varies widely More
Rates of food insecurity have increased substantially in the United States (US), and more families are turning to the charitable food system to help meet their needs. Prior studies have examined the nutritional quality of foods offered through food banks, but little is known about what government policies may shape the healthy food donation landscape. More
Healthy Eating Research (HER), Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and The Food Trust have developed the first national research agenda focused on healthy food retail. The research agenda is the result of a multi-step process, including commissioned research and a Healthy Retail Research convening, which More
This project will develop and test tools to help food banks and food pantries rank food nutritionally through implementation of the Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System (HER guidelines). The objectives are to: 1) Revise existing SWAP materials to align with the new HER guidelines and develop new materials to complete More
With unemployment currently at a record high as a result of COVID-19, participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is expected to increase significantly. Congress has already passed three COVID-19 aid bills, which include SNAP provisions such as funding for emergency benefits for SNAP households and program administrative flexibilities. This issue brief that reviews More
CSPI, in partnership with researchers from The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, will conduct a comprehensive scan of policy, business, and legal factors that may support or hamper healthy food bank donations. Findings will be used, in conjunction with HER’s model food bank nutrition standards, to More
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