Healthy Food Economy

Investing in a better regional food system, together

The capital region is known as America’s Farm-to-Fork Capital, and yet, Sacramento County alone is home to nearly 280,000 individuals facing food insecurity. To address the issues of food and nutrition insecurity throughout the community — and further work in one of our Strategic Initiatives, Connecting the Regional Food Economy — we established the Healthy Food Economy Fund to resource large-scale investments in the projects that will create the greatest change.

This work is guided by the 2021 Food System Action Plan, produced by the Foundation in partnership with Valley Vison, that identifies key assets, challenges, and opportunities across six focus areas that affect the local food system:

• food nutrition and security,
• the viability of agriculture,
• environmental sustainability,
• local food economy,
• careers in food and agriculture, and
• health and nutrition.

Advancing the strategies recommended by the Food System Action Plan requires that funders partner, collaborate, and — together — address the disparities that exist across the food system that serves local communities. Fortunately, the movement to strengthen the region’s food system has a great deal of momentum and strong assets on which to build. And we know that philanthropic investments can make a difference. 

Case in point: Following a strategy recommended in the 2015 Regional Action Plan, the Foundation partnered with Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (SFBFS) to streamline and strengthen its emergency food distribution system. With that sustained investment, SFBFS networked its partner agencies, improved its use of computers and databases to track the food its agencies distribute, purchased more trucks and forklifts to move food pallets with ease, and increased its refrigeration storage to keep foods fresh. As a result, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, SFBFS was better positioned to meet growing need and respond to it effectively.

Gifts to the Healthy Food Economy Fund helped Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services streamline and strengthen the local emergency food distribution system, better positioning its team to meet the need the resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you have the desire to create greater equity in local food access to underserved communities; believe in building the regional food economy through investments in infrastructure and support for the next generation of food entrepreneurs, farmers, and advocates; and value food and nutrition education to ensure children and families can make informed decisions regarding their food choices, we invite to you consider a donation to the Healthy Food Economy Fund.