Healthy Chicago: Focus on Obesity Prevention-Produce Carts

1. Healthy Chicago:
Focus on Obesity Prevention-Produce Carts
Jennifer Herd, Senior Health Policy Analyst
John Piercy, President, Neighbor Capital
Jim Lobianco, Executive Director, StreetWise
Chicago Board of Health
November 21, 2012
Chicago Department of Public Health
@ChiPublicHealth on

2. Healthy Chicago Obesity Prevention
Goal
Prevent and control overweight, obesity and
related chronic diseases.
Targets
• Reduce the number of Chicagoans living in food deserts to
200,000 by 2015 and to zero by 2020.
• Reduce adult and childhood obesity by 10%.
• Decrease the proportion of youth and adults consuming
less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day by
10%.

3. HEALTHY CHICAGO
Chicago Department of Public Health

4. Obesity Prevention
Strategy
Participate in efforts to revise the City’s current
policies and regulations to ensure the availability
of healthy and affordable produce in low food
access communities through a mobile cart
program.

5. NEIGHBOR CAPITAL:
mission, vision and values
To empower low-wealth individuals and communities
Mission through socially benefitting retail business.
To be a leading example of the power of social business to
Vision create scalable enterprises that transform the lives of lower
wealth individuals and communities.
Values
Dignity: Collaboration: Sustainability:
In everything, we uphold the We believe that each Our focus is on sustainable
dignity of our neighbors community contains the solutions that are able to
through active partnership, talent and ingenuity needed self-fund and avoid
honesty, integrity and to solve the challenges that creating dependency on
respect. they face. Our goal is to help donations.
them to overcome barriers or
deficits that currently prevent
them from doing so.

6. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
current status
Business Launched
Funding
New Legislation
Key Partners on Board

7. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
convenience, low cost, high quality
Research indicates that the 3 things consumers care about most in making a decision
about whether or not and where to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables are convenience,
cost, and quality, in that order.* We can offer this combination because of the following:
New legislation
gives us access to Our overhead is
the most convenient lower without Advertising and
locations through buying or leasing promotion covers
public way permits land or buildings our distribution
costs
All of this allows our
vendors to focus on
providing quality fruit at
the lowest possible price
*Source: “Grocery Gap: Who has Access to Healthy Foods and
Why it Matters.” Sarah Treuhaft, PolicyLink and Allison Karpyn
The Food Trust.

8. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
Unique, new, interactive and engaging ad offering

9. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
Key partner
To assist Chicago area men and women, who are facing
Mission homelessness, achieve personal stability by providing them
with a combination of supportive services and immediate
gainful employment
Collaboration with Neighbor Carts
Vendor Recruitment: Job Readiness: Wrap around Support:
Actively identifies at-risk Provides all candidates with Provides candidates with
candidates from Chicago screening, pre-employment an array of social services
workforce agencies support and job readiness with a focus on
training employment retention,
housing stability and
financial literacy

10. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
vendor focus: Jeremias and Maria

11. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
vendor focus: Ted

12. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
customers
The carts meet a real need.
Sales in our first carts have consistently
exceeded projections.
Customers prove that we are meeting
their needs better than anything that
currently exists.

13. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
growth plan: first 30 locations
Growth Map
• Blue Marks indicate a site that we
have entered or are have a permit
pending for in 2012.
• Red Marks indicate a site that we
intend to apply for and occupy in
2013.
• Blue lines indicate the outline of
the underserved/food desert areas
which will contain 50% of our carts.

14. NEIGHBOR CARTS:
impact
Activity Metrics
Outputs: Number of units of produce sold, number of
customers served.
Increased access Long Term: Healthier Communities.
to fresh produce Outcomes: Reduced incidence of obesity and
diabetes.
Outputs: Number of vendors trained, retention rates,
dollars earned.
Short Term Outcomes: Change in economic status of
Economic individual vendors, access to higher paying jobs and
better opportunities.
Development
Impact: Ultimately, our carts act as a catalyst for
further economic development and bring economic
growth and vibrancy to entire communities.

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@ChiPublicHealth
312.747.9884
CityofChicago.org/Health
HealthyChicago@CityofChicago.org