Mariposa Food Co-op operates as a full-service, cooperatively-owned and -operated grocery store in Philadelphia, PA. With more than 1,500 members they are active leaders in the cooperative movement. They currently employ 45 people, making them one of the neighborhood’s largest employers. This profile highlights the Co-op's impact on the local community and the funding and financing behind their recent expansion.

Green City Growers Cooperative (GCGC) is a cooperative urban greenhouse in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio. GCGC provides an example of an innovative and employee-owned food production enterprise that is revitalizing Cleveland’s Central neighborhood while providing quality employment opportunities, building community wealth and assets, and promoting healthy food access both in the neighborhood and citywide.

ChangeLab Solutions developed this guide to provide an overview of farmers’ market policy issues and community tested best practices. This guide for local government staff (planners, public health departments, etc.), elected officials, farmers’ market managers, food policy councils, and other stakeholders, to provide practical guidance and tools that communities can customize to create more farmers’ market opportunities and to ensure their long-term viability.

The hottest trend in the grocery business might just be setting up shop in food deserts. Since 2010, when Rahm Emanuel adopted the issue during his mayoral campaign, big retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Walgreen Co. have made well-publicized commitments to build stores in underserved neighborhoods in Chicago and other urban centers.

This fact sheet, developed by ChangeLab Solutions, describes the many benefits of produce cart vending. Produce cart vendors can travel deep into neighborhoods most in need of fresh produce, do not require large capital investments to start operations, and can adjust their inventory quickly to fit the unique cultural demands of a community.

Learn the eight steps to follow to get more fruits and vegetables in your neighborhood with this helpful California-specific factsheet, developed by ChangeLab Solutions.

ChangeLab Solutions developed a Model Licensing Ordinance for Healthy Food Retailers, along with an accompanying guide that describes how the ordinance works and provides tips on how to implement it successfully in your community. The ordinance changes business licensing policies to require all food stores (not including restaurants) to carry a minimum selection of healthy food and meet other basic operating standards. In short, it sets a "healthy baseline" to improve food quality and accessibility at food stores across an entire community.

The New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTC Program) helps economically distressed communities attract private investment capital by providing investors with a federal tax credit. Investments made through the NMTC Program are used to finance businesses and real estate projects, breathing new life into neglected, underserved low-income communities.This award booklet provides a detailed breakdown of statistics on the 2012 round applicants and allocatees.

ChangeLab Solutions developed “Food as a Catalyst for Change,” a case study exploring efforts to rebuild the food system in Birmingham. Learn about local efforts to build healthy food enterprises in the region and to glean lessons for other cities and towns.

ChangeLab Solutions’ toolkit describes how to create a strong healthy small food retailer certification program by requiring participating stores to increase the variety of healthy foods they sell, reduce the offerings of unhealthy foods, and proactively market healthy options with help from a sponsoring agency or organization. It provides step-by-step instructions for developing a certification program, with ideas and examples from existing programs.