Healthy food access is not just about increasing food retail, though that is a critical component. It is also about creating and supporting the food production, processing and distribution infrastructure necessary to get healthy food to the places where it can’t currently be found. Within the food system, there is a great variety of enterprises with a wide spectrum of capital and technical assistance needs. Enterprises all along this continuum need access to the right match of capital and related technical assistance.

Just as healthy food system enterprises are wondering how to understand and access capital and related technical assistance, CDFIs are wondering what healthy food systems are and how to go about financing them.

This is a chapter from Financing Healthy Food Options: Implementation Handbook.