Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund Grant

America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI)

America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) was created to improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas, to create and preserve quality jobs, and to revitalize low-income communities.

America’s HFFI is a public-private partnership administered by Reinvestment Fund on behalf of USDA Rural Development.

Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund

The FARE Fund supports innovative fresh food retail and food system enterprises that seek to improve access to healthy food in underserved areas through food retail. Funding could assist projects with a variety of aspects of project development, renovation, and/or expansion. Grants and loans are designed to be one-time investments of capital into a food retail or food enterprise project in order to address higher costs and initial barriers to entry in underserved rural and urban areas. Grant and loan funds should unlock additional sources of capital, catalyze project sustainability, meet financing gaps, and/or enable deeper impact or project reach. Technical Assistance (TA) will be available to support selected early-stage planning and predevelopment projects where resources would help build local capacity to develop a food retail outlet or food enterprise and would clarify or advance an eligible project.

Funding

Over the next 5 years, the new program will offer $60 million in loans, grants, and technical assistance for the predevelopment, planning, and implementation of eligible projects aiming to increase food access, and strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain.

Implementation grant requests may be from $20,000-$250,000. Technical Assistance funding requests may be up to $100,000.

Eligibility

_ You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's [website]()%20Fund%20.pdf).