America's Healthy Food Financing Initiative Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund Grants and Technical Assistance

Anne Misak
help@investinginfood.com
215.574.5862

The America's Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund is offering grant funding for planning, implementation, and technical assistance (TA) projects related to food retail supply chain resiliency, access to healthy foods, employment, and low-income community revitalization. Grants are one-time investments of capital to address barriers to entry in the food retail or food enterprise fields for rural and other areas.

The program supports food retail and food enterprises within the post-harvest food retail supply chain. Project examples include, but are not limited to:

• Retailer requests grant funding to cover the cost of a portion of equipment and construction costs for a larger capital project that will build a new grocery store or renovate a portion of an existing store in order to maintain or expand the availability of staple and perishable foods at the full-service grocery store in an underserved area
• Community-based nonprofit organization or cooperative requests TA to complete a feasibility study for an alternative or non-traditional retail distribution model such as a pop-up retail outlet in a low-population community that has limited access to fresh foods
• Existing retailer requests grant funds to plan and set up a new e-commerce or delivery model that will allow them to expand their business and better reach rural communities not served by a grocery store
• Food hub that aggregates and distributes produce from local farmers for distribution to retailers requests grant funding to purchase and install equipment that will allow them to expand their produce distribution company to improve and expand food access at a number of SNAP authorized grocery stores selling an assortment of staple and perishable foods

Eligible organizations include:

• For-profit business enterprises
• Cooperatively owned businesses
• Tax-exempt nonprofit corporations
• Institutions of higher education
• State and local government and governmental agencies, authorities, commissions and food policy councils
• Tribal governments and tribal governmental agencies, authorities, and food policy councils

Expected award range: $20,000 - $250,000 for planning and implementation grants and up to $75,000 for TA
Estimated total program funding: $5,250,000 for planning and implementation grants and $1,000,000 for TA

A link to the application instructions and online application system is available on the program website.

To begin the application process, submit a Funding Inquiry Form online by July 31, 2026. Eligible applicants will receive an invitation to submit a full application, with a deadline of October 30, 2026.

Applicant webinar
(Registration required)
May 27, 2026
2:30 p.m. Eastern