San Francisco Healthy Corner Stores Project

Food deserts like Bayview-Hunters Point and the Tenderloin in San Francisco lack quality full-service markets with fresh produce and contain an overabundance of fast food chains and corner stores, selling unhealthy foods as well as alcohol and tobacco. The Southeast Food Access (SEFA) Working Group and Bayview Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Zone in Bayview-Hunters Point, and the Tenderloin Healthy Corner Store Coalition implemented a model in their respective neighborhoods to help increase healthy food access in corner stores that are a common in food deserts. The model includes access to retail technical assistance (store redesign, distribution systems, sourcing and maintaining produce), community health promotion efforts, and government incentives designed to sell and promote fresh produce.

The goal of the San Francisco Healthy Corner Stores Project is to bring healthy food to neighborhoods with limited access to fresh produce.

Four stores in San Francisco were converted to sell fresh produce. Legislation was passed in San Francisco that established Healthy Food Retailer Incentives Program to promote healthy food access in corner stores citywide.

Three stores in Bayview-Hunters Point and one store in the Tenderloin have been converted into establishments that sell fresh produce. The city of San Francisco passed legislation that established a citywide Healthy Food Retailer Incentives Program within the Office of Economic and Workforce Development to work with existing agencies such as the SEFA Working Group and the San Francisco Department of Public Health to promote healthy retail stores based on the San Francisco Healthy Corner Stores Project model.