Food banks exist to provide food for free to people who need it. Alameda County Community Food Bank is proving that food banks can also get paid for providing that food. In February, the Calif.-based food bank received its first payment for providing healthy food to a patient on behalf…
Posts published in “Food is Medicine”
Standards are hardly exciting. But if an organization wants to expand its reach and influence, they’re a necessity. The Food is Medicine Coalition is hoping that the standard it just released around medically tailored meals will get more organizations to adopt high-quality, nutritious meals as a way to treat chronic…
Food banks are starting to throw around their purchasing power. Because of pressure from food banks, some food manufacturers are starting to remove added salt, sugar and fats from their canned and other goods. A side benefit is that more nutritious food is also ending up on the shelves of…
A software system developed by Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is helping food banks not only push more nutritious food out the door, but also prove that it’s nutritious. The Nourish system, developed in partnership with a local university, lets food banks track the nutritional quality of their food inventory…
Two years of knocking on doors and building relationships with health care clinics helped Tarrant Area Food Bank win a large grant from CVS Health Foundation to carry out a five-part Food is Medicine pilot. The multi-year grant, funded at $750,000 a year, will feature medically tailored meals prepared by…
Food banks and pantries know they are really good at getting healthy food to vulnerable people. Increasingly, the healthcare industry is understanding that as well. Both healthcare payers and providers are seeking ways to more fully partner with experts in hunger relief. They realize food banks and pantries not only…
There are plenty of opportunities to go around in Food as Medicine, and celebrity chef Michel Nischan aptly summed them up last week at the Food as Medicine Policy Summit held in Washington D.C. Patients get food to improve their lives; doctors get tools to slow devastating disease; insurance plans…
In a recent video, the head of a healthcare foundation articulated why partnerships between healthcare providers and hunger relief organizations can be so challenging, despite the growing mounds of evidence that a food-secure population leads to improved public health. John Lumpkin, M.D., M.P.H., president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield…
Like many nonprofits, Reinvestment Partners of Durham, N.C., relied on grant funding when it started Eat Well, a produce prescription program that began by getting money into the hands of veterans so they could purchase fresh produce. Before long, the produce prescription program was supported through a multi-million dollar contract…