Stop & Shop, About Fresh, combine to offer prepaid cards to buy healthy food for eligible MA participants

Stop & Shop and Boston-based nonprofit About Fresh announced Tuesday that they have partnered to expand access to fresh and healthy foods for people in need across New England. Through About Fresh’s “Fresh Connect” program, participants can use prepaid debit cards ‘prescribed’ by healthcare providers to purchase healthy food. With Tuesday’s announcement, Stop & Shop becomes the first major retailer to make this produce as a prescription program available. After a successful pilot at Stop & Shop’s Grove Hall store location, the program is now available at more than 100 store locations in Eastern Massachusetts and will expand to all 400+ Stop & Shop stores by early spring. The current locations include 501 Rodman Street and 333 Marianno Bishop Boulevard in Fall River.

According to the Greater Boston Food Bank, as many as 1 in 7 adults and 1 in 5 children in Massachusetts are struggling with food insecurity – numbers pushed higher by the COVID-19 pandemic. With prepaid debit cards funded by healthcare organizations and a HIPAA-compliant platform, Fresh Connect empowers patients who are experiencing food insecurity with the money, convenience, and agency to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables that can help improve their overall health and wellbeing. By working with Stop & Shop, hundreds of Fresh Connect participants can now easily shop for fresh fruits and vegetables at their local store, swipe the prepaid debit card at check out, and it will automatically deduct the cost of the produce from the total purchase price.

Fresh Connect’s debit cards for qualifying individuals and families are primarily funded by major healthcare institutions like Brigham Medicaid ACO and Brigham Women’s Faulkner Hospital, and Boston Medical Center. Prior to teaming up with Stop & Shop, Fresh Connect cardholders were able to use their cards at About Fresh’s “Fresh Trucks”, trucks offering fresh produce around the City of Boston, as well as other local retailers. By making Fresh Connect cards available for Stop & Shop shoppers, more card holders get the added convenience of access to fresh fruits and vegetables where they are already shopping. This new partnership represents a significant step in the effort to combine healthcare resources with Fresh Connect’s groundbreaking technology and leading retail partners to significantly expand food access as a way to advance health equity – and to transform the way we fund efforts to eradicate food insecurity and improve public health.

“Especially in the midst of the global pandemic, working with Stop & Shop to ensure communities have access to fresh fruits & vegetables is more important than ever,” said Josh Trautwein, Co-founder and CEO 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.”

To learn more about the About Fresh “Fresh Connect” program, please visit: www.aboutfresh.org/fresh-connect.