The Foundation for Fresh Produce’s newly released 2025 Impact Report emphasizes repositioning produce as preventive medicine rather than just healthy eating. It’s a shift the foundation says was inspired by the growing disconnect between what health care systems spend on treating disease and how little is invested in prevention.
The report cites “eye-opening” findings on a global scale, including the rise of diet-related, noncommunicable disease in emerging middle-class nations. Even more surprising, only 1% to 2% of health investments globally are directed toward noncommunicable disease prevention, according to the report.
“By reframing produce as preventive medicine, we’re meeting decision‑makers where they are — in health care, policy and research — while staying true to what the produce industry has always stood for: growing and delivering foods that help people live healthier lives,” says Katie Calligaro, director of marketing and communications for The Foundation for Fresh Produce. “This isn’t a departure from nutrition education; it’s an evolution that elevates fruits and vegetables to their rightful role in global health.”
Closing the gap between what health care systems spend on treating disease and what is invested in prevention is an important goal for the organization.
“The foundation is focused on elevating fruits and vegetables within global health conversations where they’ve historically been underrepresented,” Calligaro says. “By sharing data that highlights the rise of diet-related noncommunicable diseases — particularly in emerging middle‑class nations — we’re making the case that prevention must start with access to and consumption of produce.”
Calligaro says the foundation is also convening cross-sector leaders, supporting research and advocating for greater alignment between food systems and health systems, always with the goal of channeling more attention and resources toward prevention.
“Nutrition education and practical knowledge — how to eat fruits and vegetables in a cultural context throughout the life stage is the unlock,” says Lauren Scott, president of The Foundation for Fresh Produce.
‘Big Step Forward’ for Produce
The Foundation for Fresh Produce has appointed its first chief medical officer: Jelena Gligorijević has a nutrition specialty with a focus on preventive medicine and global health promotion.
Calligaro calls the new role a “big step forward for the produce industry,” as Gligorijević will help translate decades of produce research into language that resonates with physicians, health systems, insurers and policymakers.
“Appointing our first chief medical officer gives the foundation a credible, clinical voice that can bridge agriculture, nutrition science and health care practice,” Calligaro says. “It also ensures everything we advance is anchored in evidence, reinforcing trust in fruits and vegetables as an essential part of preventive care.”
Building Healthy Habits from the Start
The Foundation for Fresh Produce 2025 Impact Report shines a light on the need to start fruit and vegetable consumption habits from an early age. To address this need, the foundation has launched the Child Nutrition Education Network to increase fresh produce consumption among children around the world.
“The Child Nutrition Education Network is designed to become a global community of practice to connect, elevate and scale organizations working to build nutrition literacy and lifelong healthy eating habits for children,” Calligaro says. “The network brings together practitioners across settings: health care, early childhood, schools, community‑based programs and food systems, as well as the funders who support the work.”
Calligaro says this cross-collaboration is crucial as “nutrition education remains fragmented, underresourced and unevenly integrated across a child’s life course, despite strong evidence that early, consistent exposure to fruits and vegetables improves health, academic and long‑term outcomes.”
By providing shared infrastructure, visibility and coordination, the network creates a more cohesive, scalable ecosystem that can support children from prenatal stages through adolescence and into adulthood, says Calligaro, who adds the Child Nutrition Education Network helps to foster new partnerships between growers, retailers, health care providers and community organizations.
Calligaro says the foundation also plays an important role in informing policy discussions that impact children and their families.
“The insights from the Impact Report help ensure that fruits and vegetables are part of evidence-based conversations around nutrition security, prevention and access,” she says. “By equipping stakeholders with credible research and real‑world examples, we support policies that recognize the role produce plays in public health programs like school meals, SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] and WIC [Women, Infants and Children].”
Engaging Consumers and Health Professionals
The Foundation’s fruitsandveggies.org site is another platform for engagement, serving as a hub for both professional and consumer information.
It’s also designed to inspire the all-important younger consumer — Gen Z and millennials — to eat more fruits and vegetables.
“Fruitsandveggies.org serves as a trusted, modern hub designed to meet consumers where they are. For Gen Z and millennials, that means approachable language, practical ideas and content that connects food choices to real‑life priorities like energy, mental health and long‑term wellness,” Calligaro says.
She says the foundation drives traffic through paid and organic engagement campaigns across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. It also nurtures food, nutrition and health professionals, educators, retail dietitians and other influential stakeholders who connect directly with consumers where they are making decisions about food.
“We take a surround-sound approach to marketing these assets to various audiences and continue to invest in creating new and culturally relevant content that aligns with Google Analytics to ensure that the site remains both credible and relevant to younger audiences,” Calligaro says. “Recipes and curated themed content through blogs like ‘20 Quick & Easy Recipes with 5 Ingredients or Less’ continue to drive the most site traffic.”
Calligaro says demonstrating the value of produce from a cost standpoint is also key to moving the needle on consumption.
Since the creation of the hub, fruitsandveggies.org has seen a 114% surge in health professional file downloads, according to the foundation.
“The surge in health professional downloads signals strong demand for practical, science‑based tools and resources, which we continue to learn through surveying the community throughout the year,” Calligaro says. “Fruitsandveggies.org equips retail dietitians, and other food and nutrition professionals, with ready‑to‑use resources that help translate the food‑is‑medicine message at the point of purchase.
“This empowers retailers to communicate more confidently and consistently with shoppers, providing consistent messaging and inspirational ideas to make produce accessible, achievable and enjoyable, while subtly reinforcing fruits and vegetables as an everyday investment in health and supporting produce sales at the same time,” she continues.
Nutrition education for people with diabetes is another important area where the foundation saw a need and is now helping to fill it.
“Through direct feedback from dietitians and clinicians, we heard that many lacked concise, produce‑forward guidance they could easily use with patients managing or at risk for diabetes,” Calligaro says. “In response, the foundation developed and refined evidence‑based fruit and vegetable resources tailored to this need.”
Calligaro says the feedback has been immediate and practical, with providers reporting greater confidence in counseling patients now that they’re armed with accessible materials that reinforce fruits and vegetables as an actionable solution.
“This kind of targeted approach — listening first, then delivering specific tools — allows us to align and amplify a consistent message across a global network of professionals who already value fruits and vegetables as essential to health,” she says.
Measuring Success of ‘Food is Medicine’
While “food is medicine” is an important initiative, the foundation measures success through the broader lens of its “Theory of Change,” Calligaro says.
“Our work is grounded in the belief that increasing fruit and vegetable consumption at scale requires more than any single program; it requires alignment across awareness, access, education and influence over the full lifespan,” she says. “Success for the foundation and the fresh produce industry means measurable progress toward a shared set of outcomes: increased visibility of fruits and vegetables as essential to health; stronger and more consistent nutrition education across health care, schools and communities; greater confidence among health and nutrition professionals to recommend produce as a first‑line solution; and, ultimately, sustained increases in fruit and vegetable consumption.”
Your next read: How Hy-Vee Dietitians Guide Shoppers Toward Plant Variety
