| NSF Org: |
ITE Innovation and Technology Ecosystems |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | December 9, 2022 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | December 9, 2022 |
| Award Number: | 2236389 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Michael Reksulak
mreksula@nsf.gov (703)292-8326 ITE Innovation and Technology Ecosystems TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | December 15, 2022 |
| End Date: | November 30, 2024 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $744,721.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $744,721.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1855 FOLSOM ST STE 425 SAN FRANCISCO CA US 94103-4249 (415)476-2977 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1855 FOLSOM ST STE 425 SAN FRANCISCO CA US 94103-4249 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Convergence Accelerator Resrch |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
Low-income communities in the US have food systems saturated with ultraprocessed, hyperpalatable foods, industrially produced "fast foods" that are cheap, convenient, and habit-forming. Meanwhile, fresh food is hard to find. The proliferation of these "food swamps" is a national challenge that is driving twin epidemics of obesity and chronic disease, as well as significant environmental harms and profound health challenges. The urgent need to address this national concern has been recognized by the National Academy of Medicine, the US Food Department of Agriculture, and the National Science Foundation. The Network Of User-engaged Researchers building Interdisciplinary Scientific infrastructures for Healthy food (NOURISH) will develop technical solutions that help people transform food swamps into healthy food systems. Ultraprocessed and hyperpalatable foods comprise about two-thirds of the US food supply, leaving most Americans to encounter them daily. But food swamps leave their residents with few food options other than these unhealthy products. To solve the problem of food swamps, we must equip responsible business entrepreneurs situated within these communities with data and information for developing and marketing healthy, sustainable foods. This includes information on what consumers in their markets want in terms of taste, convenience, and affordability, as well as information on how to source fresh produce affordably and open a small business.
Bringing high technology and advanced data to a cell phone application and online dashboard, NOURISH will enable local food entrepreneurs to grow businesses that produce, prepare, and market food that is naturally appealing, without the industrial production processes used to make hyperpalatable foods. There already exists a large, national network of community-based nonprofit food justice groups seeking this transformation. There is also a vibrant community of philanthropists, investors and social enterprise firms who want to invest in, and support, healthy food businesses in under-resourced communities. NOURISH brings these groups together with scientists to innovate technical solutions that work for everybody. The NOURISH system will connect local food entrepreneurs and investors, equipping them with a high-technology system that accelerates their efforts to transform food swamps. Features of the system will include:
- a national food swamp map,
- crowdsourced data on local consumer food preferences and affordable pricing,
- access to supply chains for fresh foods,
- resources for launching a small food business, and
- a social networking feature that builds and connects stakeholders in healthy food nationwide.
NOURISH advances a novel scientific perspective that is grounded in research, one that points to profound market failures in our current food system as a key factor in both the existence of food swamps and their eradication. The NOURISH team expands upon an existing community-academic partnership, bringing together expertise in public health nutrition, food chemistry, foodsheds, community engagement, agriculture, regional planning, business, addiction, and data science/AI. This team will prototype a dynamic, reusable, place-based cyberinfrastructure developed via community engagement. The NOURISH system will combine publicly available data and crowdsourced information using a heterogeneous information integration platform. It will have an updatable, ontology-based knowledge graph that provides users with information on regional supply chains in fresh foods and local market data on consumers' preferences. The system will include specific recommendation algorithms and visual analytics tools that allow end users to explore the efficacy of different recommended solutions. A series of three workshops will gather insights and feedback from stakeholders in the food system and investment communities, exploring different use cases.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
This project will increase food and nutrition security by expanding the capacity of small businesses serving food deserts to produce more fresh food. Thirty-four million Americans are food-insecure and 13.5-23.5 million live in low-income food deserts, where fresh food is scarce but ultraprocessed foods are cheap, convenient, and ubiquitous.1-3 Current efforts to address food deserts, and their negative health and environmental sequelae,4-9 often overlook small businesses as a solution. The NOURISH artificial intelligence-enabled (AI) platform empowers small businesses through novel, convergent solutions that allow small business owners to tailor products to local preferences for taste, convenience and affordability. It builds on the skill-sets of existing, but often under-utilized talent, rich food heritages, unmet demand for healthy food, and relatively low start-up costs to found new small business and expand established ones. Accessed through computer/phone app, the NOURISH platform empowers users (new/established small farms and prepared food businesses) to: 1) obtain public/private capital for starting/expanding fresh food businesses, 2) explore market data on the competitive landscape, optimal business locations, and consumer preferences, 3) learn through curated business tutorials and a business plan assistant, 4) find partners in local fresh food supply chains through a "smart foodsheds" feature, and 5) understand and apply for local licenses and permits. End-user testing begins in San Diego County (urban/suburban) and rural Imperial County before transitioning the product into widespread practical use.
The NOURISH platform is an integrated, convergent science-based solution to address critical resource and informational need gaps in food-insecure communities. By leveraging advances in AI, food ontologies, spatial information science, and business economics, along with a team of public and private sector partners, the platform advances several innovative products. Key intellectual contributions include: (1) food systems knowledge graphs that integrate disparate information, including structured and unstructured data from local businesses, demographics, food security, market projections, local food practices, zoning laws and regulations, and funding sources; (2) development of market opportunity metrics and guides supporting local healthy food entrepreneurs, and (3) a system of novel AI tools including market opportunity and financing recommenders, business plan assistants, and nutritional optimizer. The NOURISH platform and products hold promise to improve food system efficiencies while enlightening opportunity landscapes for healthy food entrepreneurs, and advancing nutrition science and geospatial research. By advancing more efficient local healthy-food marketplaces, NOURISH entrepreneurs are empowered with personalized, locally-relevant and actionable knowledge which has mainly been available to large national and global scale enterprises. NOURISH advances bottom-up sociotechnical interventions that alter the food choice environment to appeal to local consumer tastes. It also leverages the small food sector to improve economic development in low-income communities, while reducing risks for obesity-related cardiometabolic diseases linked to the consumption of ultraprocessed foods.
The advancement of a knowledge-based marketplace for healthy food businesses is the main impact on societal well-being. The NOURISH platform has the potential to improve the lives of an estimated 13.5 million Americans who live in food deserts by using market mechanisms to increase nutrition security, while helping to lower the estimated $1.145 trillion in healthcare spending associated with the nutrition-related cardiometabolic disease burden.10 NOURISH teamed with the CORE Institute Fellows Program to offer practice-based learning projects that promote adoption of the NOURISH platform by food vendors on the student's college campus, and through a middle/high school curriculum developed in partnership with the 4-H Club. A platform training program for business mentors who work with the US Small Business Administration promotes nutrition security for all.
1. Coleman-Jensen A, Rabbitt MP, Gregory CA, Singh A. Household Food Security in the United States in 2021. USDA Economic Research Service; 2022.
2. Where are food deserts in the U.S.? Accessed August 28, 2023. http://www.ers.usda.gov/dataproducts/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=74935
3. Ney J. Food Deserts and Inequality. Social Policy Data Lab. Published September 30, 2021. Accessed August 28, 2023. https://www.socialpolicylab.org/post/grow-your-blog-community
4. Truong K, Fernandes M, An R, Shier V, Sturm R. Measuring the physical food environment and its relationship with obesity: evidence from California. Public Health. 2010;124(2):115-118.
5. Phillips AZ, Rodriguez HP. Adults with diabetes residing in "food swamps" have higher hospitalization rates. Health Serv Res. 2019;54 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):217-225.
6. Phillips AZ, Rodriguez HP. US county "food swamp" severity and hospitalization rates among adults with diabetes: A nonlinear relationship. Soc Sci Med. 2020;249:112858.
7. Hager ER, Cockerham A, O'Reilly N, et al. Food swamps and food deserts in Baltimore City, MD, USA: associations with dietary behaviours among urban adolescent girls. Public Health Nutr. 2017;20(14):2598-2607.
8. Schmidt L, Mialon M, Kearns C, Crosbie E. Transnational corporations, obesity, and planetary health. Lancet Planet Health. 2020;4(7):e266-e267.
9. Seferidi P, Scrinis G, Huybrechts I, Woods J, Vineis P, Millett C. The neglected environmental impacts of ultra-processed foods. Lancet Planet Health. 2020;4(10):e437-e438.
10. Waters H, Graf M. America's Obesity Crisis: The Health and Economic Costs of Excess Weight. Milken Institute; 2020. Accessed August 22, 2023. https://milkeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/reportspdf/Mi-Americas-Obesity-Crisis-WEB_2.pdf
Last Modified: 02/11/2025
Modified by: Laura Schmidt
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