Chain stores, supermarkets, supersize stores, and full-service grocery stores all serve the food access needs of most americans today, yet leaving behind urban communities in underserved areas with…

Chain stores, supermarkets, supersize stores, and full-service grocery stores all serve the food access needs of most americans today, yet leaving behind urban communities in underserved areas with a majority resident profile of snap recipients, minority, and low income families. Small MOM & POP immigrant owned stores, also referred to as corner stores have consistently served urban communities through bouts of public disinvestment and exodus of private business. To adapt and maintain their livelihoods corner stores had to shift their business model as changes in the supply chain took place to tailor towards big stores. The fact that a superstore in the USA averages ~65,000 SQ FT of retail space while a corner store is ~1,200 SQ FT illustrates the disparity in purchasing volume and power. With the growth of supersize stores, and chain businesses, biases in accessing products in the supply chain became inherently associated with the size of a store. The economy of scale says the more you purchase, the more affordable your products will be on the shelf and the more you can dictate production and distribution patterns. With this level of competition, corner stores have to stock non-perishable items, and low-maintenance products (i.e. tobacco, candy, grocery and alcohol) that assure longer shelf life and more tailored support by the industry. Corner stores who venture into the fresh produce space fail. Basic services like distribution of fresh produce is not available to small store volume purchases. In contrast, a corner store owner can acquire alcohol, tobacco and soda products from a sophisticated and efficient supply chain network with free distribution services, free labor in stocking, free marketing of substances, and have the option of purchasing alcohol, soda and tobacco on a loan. IT's with a deep understanding of this context that saba grocers designed the following project for the GUS schumacher nutrition incentive program. We will deliver a 24 monthsnutrition incentive program that supports snap families in accessing affordable fresh produce at their closest corner store and the farmers market near them. We will pre-select 250 snap families living near each corner store to receive gusnip nutrition incentives for 17 months. Each participant can redeem up to $100/MON for 17 months of gusnip match funds to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables. By pre-selecting snap families we would nurtur a customer base and build a solid base of purchasing power for fresh fruits and vegetables at each corner store. This would inadvertently serve as a safety net for corner stores expanding into a larger produce section, and in lowering the risk of produce going bad on the shelf. Besides administering a nutrition incentive program, saba delivers a suite of services to support corner store owners in sustainably carrying more fresh fruits and vegetables. To measure our success we will collect survey data and host focus groups with participating snap families, this is to document change in consumption of fruits and vegetables over the period of 17 months. Produce consumption data will be collected at baseline and at month 12 from 250 snap recipients. We will also collect sales data from corner stores to document patterns of growth or shrinkage in the produce department. Data will be collected at baseline and quarterly throughout the life of the project. Our ultimate goal is to anchor 5 grocery stores, and one farmers market, in USDA identified food desert neighborhoods and build a social network of snap recipients living around each of the 5 participating firms.