Two years in, Double Up Food Bucks prove even more popular
Published on August 23, 2022
When Blue Zones Project launched its Double Up Food Bucks initiative at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020, the timing couldn’t have been better. As it turned out, giving area families an incentive to purchase fruits and vegetables provided a needed boost when residents and growers needed it most.
Two years later, the program is proving more and more popular.
Double Up Food Bucks is designed to make healthier choices easier by allowing recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to double their buying power when purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables. Fresh produce is a dietary staple in Blue Zones areas of the world, where people live the longest with less chronic disease.
Double Up Food Bucks helps bring those health benefits home. The program is funded in Tarrant County by Blue Zones Project through North Texas Healthy Communities, the nonprofit arm of Texas Health Resources.
Grocers get onboard
Double Up Food Bucks launched locally at Cowtown Farmers Market, the longest running farmers market in Fort Worth. As an “outdoor grocer,” the market was able to remain open during the initial COVID shutdown. In June 2020, the program expanded to serve SNAP recipients shopping at the Tarrant Area Food Bank’s summer Neighborhood Farmers Markets. Later that year, G.E. Foodland, a regional grocer, agreed to offer Double Up Food Bucks at its Elrod’s Cost Plus location at 1524 N.W. 25th St. in Fort Worth. Soon, two more G.E. Foodland stores came on board: Foodland Markets on South Ayers Avenue in southeast Fort Worth in December 2020, and Foodland Markets on Mansfield Highway in Forest Hill in March 2021.
At grocery stores, Double Up Food Bucks makes healthier options more affordable for customers at the neighborhood store, where they’re accustomed to shopping. SNAP recipients receive 50% off fresh produce, up to $10 a day, simply by using their Lone Star Card and mentioning Double Up Food Bucks to the cashier. At Cowtown Farmers Market, that benefit is up to $20 a day.
Two years in, the initiative continues to generate healthy benefits for everyone involved. Double Up Food Bucks has provided families with over $215,000 in savings, and local SNAP users have recorded a total of 32,000 Double Up Food Bucks transactions.
More access to healthy food
“Simply put, the Double Up Food Bucks program allows families to put more fresh fruits and vegetables on the table, and that is always a good thing,” said Matt Dufrene, vice president of Texas Health Resources. “We know that healthy eating leads to longer, better lives and our goal is to make those choices easier and more affordable for families that might be struggling to make ends meet.”
Double Up Food Bucks is just one way Blue Zones Project and North Texas Healthy Communities are working to improve healthy food access and affordability. Other efforts include a Good For You Pantry program, which provides healthy staples and nutrition education in 10 Fort Worth ISD schools and community locations; and Fresh Access, a program that delivers fresh produce to youth, seniors and surrounding neighbors at 17 Fort Worth community centers.
Photo: Double Up Food Bucks help bring health benefits home to North Texas families.
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