LOCAL BUSINESSES

Over 25% of food system workers are Black or Latine, but only 9% of accommodation and food services businesses are Black- or Latine-owned.

Local BIPOC-owned food businesses help empower community food security, food access, and economic resilience.

BIPOC-owned food businesses nonetheless receive less venture capital funding, investment, and access to resources.

We are working to support diverse local food entrepreneurship.

BIPOC food entrepreneurs and farmers face deep structural barriers in starting and scaling their businesses. Those who own small, independent food business, sell at farmers’ markets, or are direct-to-market farmers must confront additional obstacles gaining a foothold within a consolidated, corprateized, and hyper-industialized US food system.

  • 82% of entrepreneurs of color say they must work harder to gain the same success compared to white entrepreneurs.

  • Discriminatory USDA policies that make it more difficult for black farmers to access federal loans or insurance have contributed to the reductions in the numbers of Black US farmers from 14% of total farmers in 1910 to 1.4% in 2012.

  • World Central Kitchen Restaurants for the People Program

    We partnered with World Central Kitchen to help evaluate their Restaurants for the People Program, which provided supplemental meals for low-income seniors, contracted and supported local food businesses, and served as a model for California’s Great Plates Delivered program.

    Explore the Program

  • Good Food Fund

    We partnered with Food Systems for the Future to help build the Good Food Opportunity Fund, and social impact investment fund to support predominantly Black and Latine-owned food businesses built to improve nutrition and health equity in their communities.

    Learn about Food Systems for the Future

  • SNAP Online Farmers Market Pilot

    We helped FTS Solutions, a grocery technology company specializing in SNAP- and WIC-accepting stores and seeking to be involved in the first SNAP online farmers market pilot, connect with farmers markets nationwide to learn about and discuss their SNAP online ideas and questions. We also helped connect California markets with Hunger Free America’s SNAP online farmers market pilot USDA RFA.

    Check out FTS

  • Bay Area Food Access Dashboard

    Our data dashboard helps illuminate how, why, and where Bay Area residents may lack access to nutritious food, and illustrates the potential of different interventions - from local food business investment to anti-hunger programs, to bridge access gaps. We designed the dashboard’s visualizations around the key questions of our local partners.

    Explore the Dashboard

  • Expanding SNAP Options Act of 2020

    unBox worked with Hunger Free America and Food Systems for the Future to help research and draft the bill introduced in the US Senate as the Expanding SNAP Options Act of 2020. Its points were included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and the American Rescue Plan.

    Explore the Policy