QUINCY, MA - A successful pilot led to a regional rollout in the New England market for Stop & Shop. The retailer teamed up with Massachusetts-based nonprofit About Fresh to implement its Fresh Connect program within its stores. First testing the concept at its Grove Hall location, Stop & Shop now offers the produce as a prescription program across more than 100 stores in Eastern Massachusetts, with plans to expand to all 400-plus stores by early spring.
“Especially in the midst of the global pandemic, working with Stop & Shop to ensure communities have access to fresh fruits and vegetables is more important than ever,” said Josh Trautwein, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of About Fresh. “By combining Stop & Shop’s reach across the Northeast with Fresh Connect’s innovative prescription produce program, thousands of people are gaining access to affordable, healthy food that they love.”
Through About Fresh’s Fresh Connect program, participants can use prepaid debit cards prescribed by healthcare providers to purchase healthy food. These debit cards provide money, convenience, and agency to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables that can help improve consumers’ overall health and wellbeing.
Hundreds of Fresh Connect participants can now easily shop for fresh fruits and vegetables at their local Stop & Shop.
As stated in a press release, this new partnership represents a significant step in the effort to combine healthcare resources with Fresh Connect’s technology and leading retail partners to significantly expand food access as a way to advance health equity and transform the way we fund efforts to eradicate food insecurity and improve public health.
It's easy to see how this kind of partnership rewards both the community and the fresh produce supply chain—the more people we can get fruits and veggies, the higher a win for our industry.
We applaud Stop & Shop and About Fresh for these heroic efforts and look forward to programs like this one expanding across the country.
