Southeast Food Forward
Nearly $1 million in grants and technical assistance to 13 community-driven food enterprises across the Southeastern United States, awarded through a participatory process informed by grantees.
About Southeast Food Forward
Southeast Food Forward provided grants and technical assistance (TA) to advance equitable community-driven food enterprises working to expand access to affordable, fresh, healthy food across in the Southeastern United States.
The program awarded $946,215 in project grants and $47,700 in technical assistance to 13 food enterprises located in and serving Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and the region’s tribal communities. Funded projects included mobile markets reaching neighborhoods without grocery stores, food hubs connecting local farmers to institutional buyers, community grocery stores in limited food access areas, and processing and distribution infrastructure.
Southeast Food Forward emerged from a foundational commitment: the people closest to the problems should shape the solutions. Thirty-eight food systems stakeholders across the Southeast participated in interviews and surveys. Six advisors guided the program’s design. Community reviewers with regional expertise scored the applications, and the grantees themselves recommended funding allocation amounts for their cohort.
Funding was made possible through Reinvestment Fund’s Equitable Food Systems – Southeast Initiative (EFS-SI), a project funded by Walmart Foundation.
Results at a Glance
| $946,215 | Awarded in project grants |
| $47,700 | Awarded in technical assistance |
| 13 | Community-driven food enterprises funded |
| 101 | Applications received |
| 9 of 13 | Funded projects would not have been eligible for federal HFFI funding |
| 6.11% → 27% | Share of grantee retail sales using SNAP, WIC, or other nutrition benefits |
| 23,597 → 47,234 | Retail customers reached, before and after the grant period |
| 92% | Of grantees would participate in grant decision-making again |
Results & Lessons from Targeted Investment in Southeastern Food Systems
This report documents the Southeast Food Forward community-informed design process and participatory grantmaking model. awards, grantees achievements and outcomes, It also highlights achievements and outcomes across the grantee cohort, along with the challenges and opportunities that surfaced in this practice of trust-based philanthropy.
“As someone from the South, stewarding the Southeast Food Forward grants and technical assistance program has been both a professional responsibility and a personal privilege.
Olivia Chatman, Program Manager, Equitable Food Systems, Reinvestment Fund
Southeast Food Forward Grantees
Awarded projects consist of retailers, processors, aggregators, and distributors participating in direct-to-consumer sales and retail or institutional distribution of healthy food.
- Acadiana Growers Alliance Farmer Cooperative New Iberia, LA – A farmer cooperative aggregating produce from 18 regional farms, with a new mobile market reaching underserved neighborhoods.
- City of Refuge, Inc. Atlanta, GA – A 1,750-square-foot neighborhood market on Atlanta’s historic Westside, nearly two miles from the closest grocery store.
- FoodChain, Inc. Lexington, KY – A year-round grocery sourcing from more than 60 Kentucky farmers, accepting SNAP, WIC, and Kentucky Double Dollars.
- Freshly’s Market Aberdeen, MS – A woman-owned, African American-led grocery, the only locally owned store within miles in rural Monroe County.
- Healthy Flavors Arkansas LLC Conway, AR – The Farmer-First School Food Hub, distributing locally grown produce to early childhood education centers across Central Arkansas.
- Market 166 Grocery and Kitchen Cooperative East Point, GA – A Black-led, community-owned grocery cooperative building food access through cooperative ownership.
- New Ground Farm Pembroke, NC – A Lumbee-owned farm delivering heritage crops to tribal and municipal housing communities by mobile market.
- New North Florida Cooperative Marianna, FL – A farmer-led cooperative distributing to school districts across the Florida Panhandle and Alabama’s Black Belt, reaching more than 78,000 students.
- PAL: Play. Advocate. Live Well. Spartanburg, SC – Aggregation, farm-to-school distribution, and pop-up markets connecting small Spartanburg farmers to institutional buyers.
- Radical Shoots LLC Nashville, TN – A microgreen farm building a pop-up market network on a cooperative aggregation model.
- Retaaza Atlanta, GA – A woman- and minority-owned B Corp rescuing surplus produce for mobile markets at Metro Atlanta transit stations.
- The Newberry Institute Hawkinsville, GA – A hybrid pantry-market selling cosmetically imperfect farm produce on a sliding scale in Pulaski County.
- VEGGI Farmers Cooperative New Orleans, LA – A BIPOC- and immigrant-led urban farm distributing through a CSA, farmers markets, and home delivery for SNAP recipients.
EFS-SI Data and Tools
Reinvestment Fund complements its grantmaking with research and data that guides capital deployment and policy advocacy. Through EFS-SI, this commitment was advanced by translating complex data into practical tools for practitioners, funders, and policymakers working on food access nationwide.
- National Food Access & Financing Landscape Dashboard The dashboard brings food access measures, county socio-economic data, New Markets Tax Credit eligibility, and a state-by-state directory of CDFIs into one interface. Funders, business owners, researchers, and advocates can see where residents are likely experiencing inequitable access to fresh food, how many people are affected, whether a place is eligible for government support, and which mission-driven financial institutions could be potential partners.
- Limited Supermarket Access Analysis Through EFS-SI, the LSA was updated to cover all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with a refined methodology that accounts for differences in population density and car ownership between metro and non-metro counties. It now spans 10 years, so communities can track how food access has changed. The accompanying analysis identifies approximately 28 million people nationally living in areas with limited supermarket access.
Partner With Us
The Southeast Food Forward model is adaptive and can be adopted incrementally. Its core principles, which are community input in design, flexibility in implementation, participation in allocation, and peer learning throughout, translate across geographies even as specific strategies evolve.
Reinvestment Fund invites funders, policymakers, and practitioners to explore partnership through the tools, processes, and relationships developed through EFS-SI. Interested organizations might consider:
- Partnering to replicate the model in additional regions, adapting it to local contexts
- Funding the next round of Southeast Food Forward
- Supporting longitudinal evaluation of participatory grantmaking approaches
- Technical assistance partnerships to extend capacity-building reach
- Collaborating on policy advocacy informed by insights from our data analytics