Healthy Food, Safe Food: Striking the Balance

Abstract

The Healthy Food, Safe Food (HFSF) Project is a partnership between University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota Department of Health’s Office of Statewide Health Improvement Initiatives (OSHII). HFSF’s goal was to conduct a formative evaluation to aid in developing a plan of action to address regulatory barriers to improve access to healthy foods, while simultaneously maintaining and enhancing food safety. HFSF was supported by funding from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) administered by Extension and in-kind contributions from OSHII. The purpose of the HFSF project is to identify: 1) Existing food safety rules, regulations, and policies that hinder Minnesotans from making healthy food choices. 2) Potential food safety rules, regulations, and policies that, if implemented, would make it easier for Minnesotans to make healthy food choices. 3) Potential efforts to both ensure food safety and make it easier for Minnesotans to choose healthy foods. 4) Potential training and resources that would help local SHIP and other public health employees, as well as Extension employees, work with community partners to change policies, systems, and environments. After identifying these four factors, the next key step is to create and implement a plan of action to make healthy foods accessible to all Minnesotans while maintaining food safety. This report summarizes the listening sessions, interviews, focus groups, analysis, and focus groups that were conducted on this project between July 2015 and July 2016.