Pairwise, a health-focused food and agriculture company, and Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit working to improve the food system, have announced a three-year partnership to support a joint goal of increasing access to healthy, fresh and affordable food.
Through the partnership, Pairwise will contribute $75,000 annually to PHA’s Good Food for All program, which provides produce to families facing barriers to accessing affordable, healthy and sustainable food, according to a release. The program works with local partners to empower long-term changes in healthy eating behaviors in communities across the country.
Pairwise’s contribution will provide 630,000 servings of healthy fruits and vegetables through the PHA’s Good Food for All program and will support PHA’s commitment made at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to deliver 100 million servings of produce by 2025, the release said.
“We are pleased to partner with PHA, whose impactful work aligns so closely with the Pairwise vision of reducing barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption,” said Tom Adams, co-founder and CEO at Pairwise, in the release. “The challenge of ensuring access to healthy food is multifaceted and complex. At Pairwise, we are using technology to reduce barriers to healthy food access. But it is also imperative that we work with other organizations that are tackling key social barriers. PHA is leading the way in innovative solutions to ensuring food equity.”
For one in six Americans, healthy, fresh food is either too expensive, too far away, or both, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Pairwise is working to change that through both its support of PHA and its overarching mission to drive change within America’s food system by leveraging CRISPR and other technology to bring tastier, more nutritious or more convenient produce to market, the release said.
“Every day, too many families around the country struggle to access healthy food. This entrenched problem must be addressed so that good food is available to everyone, no matter their zip code. We are taking the steps to solve it by working with Pairwise to make healthy food accessible for families in-need,” said Noreen Springstead, president and CEO of Partnership for a Healthier America.
Pairwise says the partnership’s shared goal of creating greater, sustained access to nutritious food will require innovative thinking and new solutions.
The Durham, N.C.-based food and tech company with operations in Arizona and California expects to launch its first food product, Conscious Greens, later this year in both the foodservice and retail channels.
“We look at this partnership as the very beginning of what we hope to be a long-term relationship with PHA,” Adams said. “Our shared vision of ensuring healthy food access to all steers our work each day at Pairwise. As we launch our first products this year and mature as a company, we look forward to continuing to grow our meaningful work with PHA.”
Partnership for a Healthier America launched in 2010 and collaborates with companies across the supply chain to increase access to and affordability of vegetables and fruits and to improve the nutritional quality of food and beverages, resulting in more and healthier options for families.
