Food & Nutrition Group

The Food & Nutrition Group was created to solve a problem while serving a need. The problem is food deserts – places where residents don’t have access to affordable nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Residents living in food deserts also have a hard time finding foods with nutritional value or with relevancy to meet their dietary restrictions. While there’s nothing novel about having delicious Grab N’ Go items at a community store (c-store), the availability of foods of nutritional value is. Therefore, Food & Nutrition Group set out to make this the norm. So consumers who do not have transportation can visit a grocery stores that is a walkable distance in rural and urban areas. Over 23.5 million people live in food deserts and nearly half of them are also low-income. Our research shows their is a need for community stores with fruit and vegetables as a part of their offerings, particular in areas where there are no supermarkets. Therefore, we are partnering with stakeholders at the city, state, and federal level to reach geographic areas where access to affordable, healthy food options is limited.