Ripe for Revival: Outcomes Evaluation of a Mobile Produce Market With Vouchers

Summary

Increasing access to healthy foods is crucial to combating chronic disease in rural communities. The Ripe for Revival mobile market, a non-profit eastern NC-based mobile market, seeks to improve healthy food access among those at greatest risk of food insecurity and poor health. By implementing vouchers at the mobile market, this study will help make healthy food affordable and accessible without stigma. This project is poised to improve diet and health among rural residents in eight counties and promote sustainable local food systems in North Carolina.

Detailed Description

Increasing fruit and vegetable (FV) intake and reducing saturated fat, salt, and added sugar are central lifestyle recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to prevent chronic disease. Yet, while diet is modifiable, rural families face structural and systemic inequities that make accessing affordable, healthy food more difficult. Recognizing these disparities and adverse impacts, there is a clear need to create opportunities for improved nutrition through comprehensive solutions that account for rurality, affordability, and accessibility. One potential strategy to improve rural food access is mobile markets. Ripe for Revival is a 501(c)3 based in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, with a mission to increase access to fresh foods in lower-resourced communities with a mobile market model. Ripe for Revival owns and operates a produce farm, purchases excess food from eastern NC farmers, and then sells fresh foods to patrons at roughly 20% discounted prices through its mobile market. The mobile market (a retrofitted school bus) offers fresh produce, eggs, meat, and milk weekly in eastern and central NC counties. This project continues NC State Extension's partnership with Ripe for Revival to implement vouchers to help increase mobile market affordability and assess program impacts among rural NC families. The specific aims of this proposed study include: Aim 1. Determine the nutrition-related impacts of mobile market vouchers among Ripe for Revival (RfR) shoppers in eight rural eastern NC counties (Bertie, Halifax, Hertford, Jones, Lenoir, Northampton, Warren, and Washington). Aim 2: Determine the health-related impacts of mobile market vouchers among RfR mobile market shoppers. Aim 3. Examine voucher redemption rates, volume, and dollars of local produce purchased, and suggestions for mobile market improvements among Ripe for Revival mobile market customers. This proposed project will promote health and advance equity among underserved rural families. The project addresses barriers to equitable food access, promotes a balanced diet to prevent chronic disease, and fosters sustainable local agriculture through a mobile market model.

Eligibility Criteria

Interventions