Address accessibility in your neighborhood

Retailers serve as crucial industry hubs to bring more health to more people. Unfortunately, though, the seemingly simple words “natural” and “organic” emblazoned on health foods store signs stop many from walking through the door.

Here are three ways to welcome, engage and educate everyone in your store:

1. Focus on and highlight the affordable staples in your store. These items include but are not limited to frozen and canned fruits and vegetables, potatoes, rice, eggs, tuna (canned light), beans and nuts. Create eye-catching shelf tags to call out these products. GreenStar Natural Foods Market in Ithaca, New York, and Isla Vista Food Co-op in Santa Barbara County, California, both serve as models for such promotions.

2. Accept SNAP (food stamps) benefits and offer produce bonuses. For instance, double the benefit on produce purchases. Forty-seven million Americans are enrolled in SNAP. Half of these are children and a quarter are seniors. Farmers markets that accept SNAP and double the purchase value have had great success, both financially and in increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.

3. Share the Healthy and Affordable One-week Meal Plan from Delicious Living. The Healthy and Affordable content helps solve what Share Our Strength found to be some of the biggest obstacles to eating healthy: cost and time to plan, shop and cook. Yet 85 percent of low-income families say eating healthy is important and 78 percent are interested in learning more about cooking healthy meals. The Delicious Living team created a meal plan that includes recipes, ingredient pricing, shopping lists and nutrition information. Download it from deliciousliving.com/healthy-and-affordable and share it in your store and through community organizations.