Year One of the USDA FINI Program: Incentivizing the Purchase of Fruits and Vegetables Among SNAP Customers at the Farmers Market

The USDA’s Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) program demonstrates positive progress towards the program’s main goal of increasing the purchase of fruits and vegetables among low-income consumers participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program. FINI funding is open to multiple types of produce retailers, but incentive programs were initially tested, and have proven to be successful at America’s farmers markets. In Year one, FINI supported incentive programs at almost 1,000 farmers markets, representing 4,000 direct marketing farmers in 27 states. These farmers market programs alone generated almost $8 million in SNAP and incentive sales spent on produce. Program evaluation conducted by grantees indicated uniformly high redemption rates, strong support for the program among stakeholders, and a great deal of collaboration from both public agencies and private program partners. These collaborations were particularly important in conducting outreach to SNAP recipients.

This report summarizes the results year results of 13 mid- and large-scale FINI projects that operated at farmers markets. The data and conclusions are drawn from grantee reports, information on the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s website, and additional information provided by grantees.