Initiative Aims to Improve Access to Food in Underserved Areas

Initiative Aims to Improve Access to Food in Underserved Areas

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

Application deadline: October 14, 2024, and March 3 and August 4, 2025, for funding inquiry forms (Loans and technical assistance applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.)
Grant amount: Grants will range up to $250,000 for implementation and up to $100,000 for early-stage planning, predevelopment, and technical assistance. Loans may range from $500,000 to $5,000,000.
Description: The America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund (FARE Fund) will support innovative fresh food retail and food system enterprises that seek to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas of the United States through food retail. $60 million in loans, grants, and technical assistance will be provided over five years for the predevelopment, planning, and implementation of projects aiming to increase food access, and strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain. Support will be provided for projects in eligible underserved geographic areas. Grants and loans are designed to be one-time investments of capital into a food retail or food enterprise project in order to address higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved rural and urban areas. Eligible applicants include for-profit business enterprises, cooperatively owned businesses, nonprofits, institutions of higher education, state and local governments and governmental agencies and authorities, and tribal governments and tribal governmental agencies and authorities. (State, local, and tribal governments are not eligible for loans.)