Pair of local markets first to join state’s CalFresh pilot program
FORT BRAGG, CA >> Due to the energy and commitment of Jennifer Bosma, Vice President of Harvest Market, and with guidance by the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), both Harvest Market and Mendosa Market now offer a state-sponsored rebate of up to $60 a month to CalFresh members who buy California grown fruits and vegetables in either store.
On March 7, Harvest Market had a successful “soft opening” for the state’s new pilot program. Then on March 24, Harvest Market and SPUR held a press conference in the store to inform the public. Guests included Mayor Bernie Norvell, a representative from the office of Assemblymember Jim Wood, a representative from the CalFresh program, a representative from Fort Bragg Food Bank, and Eli Zigas of SPUR, who described the story of the pilot program.
Both Harvest Market and SPUR announced that Harvest Market was the first retail grocery store in the nation to offer a rebate benefit processed through customers’ EBT cards, the electronic system similar to a debit card. Register receipts would flag the purchase of California fruits and vegetables and calculate the total spent. Then the state would electronically put that dollar amount back onto the customer’s card with a cap of $60 a month. All done in the time it takes to print a receipt.
CalFresh is the federally assisted state program of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, referred to as SNAP. It provides monthly food benefits to qualifying low-income families in California. According to the state, as of January 2023, more than three million households, approximately five million people, use these benefits to ensure they have access to food.
In March 2020, during the pandemic, the federal government allotted an extra $95 dollars a month for food purchases,
but a federal congressional spending bill ended the release of this benefit as of this month for all SNAP participants across the country. Experts believe that SNAP members who are disabled or members with large families will be the hardest hit. Many counties are directing people to seek out other free food service opportunities.
Since 2017 as part of their healthy food incentive program, SPUR has supported the Double Bucks program in some Bay Area stores and farmers’ markets to support low-income families. These programs were managed through a paper-based coupon system. The program was successful, and SPUR took a proposal to the state to develop something that would draw in more stores and farmers’ markets.
Because Harvest Market was too far away from SPUR’s base of operations, Jennifer Bosma’s first outreach to the organization to set up a rebate program was unsuccessful. She had come across the organization at a National Grocery Association presentation prior to the pandemic. SPUR drew her interest as a potential sponsor for the “double up food bucks” program.
Over the past two years, the nonprofit organization lobbied the California State Legislature to fund a statewide program through the state’s CalFresh safety net.
In 2020, AB 1811, a bill sponsored by multiple legislators, passed and was signed by Governor Newsome to create a pilot program. SPUR gave Bosma a call. Then the hard work began.
Over the following two years, Bosma and SPUR put together all the working components of the program to earn approval from the state. Bosma recalled, “I had to get all the transactional vendors on board.” The state’s EBT card processing center needed to recognize participating vendors. Vendors had to send in their proposals to the state so that all issues about necessary software coding had been addressed.
Bosma credits the vendors’ speedy cooperation. “They’re the reason we got it done first,” she said. “I’m so thankful to all of them.” She also points to SPUR for its expert guidance for the vendors through the coding changes and with arranging the connections between the vendors and the state. She also considers SPUR as the advocate for the store as well during the process with the state. “They’re fantastic,” she repeatedly remarked about the nonprofit organization.
Early in 2023, the store and vendors’ new system was tested in an off-site facility set up with Harvest Market’s EBT processing program. Everything worked, and the store quietly put it all into effect through most of March. Although vendors received state funding assistance for set up, the store received no funding to set up their piece of the program. It is also not funded for the paid time of a scan coordinator to keep codes and display labels properly updated and monitored on a daily basis.
Bosma sees all this time spent as an opportunity to design and test the technology needed so that other stores will follow in their wake. “It will make it easier for other stores to come online in the future,” she explained. Other grocery retailers have already contacted her with questions, and she directs them to their state senators. She sends customers who have questions about CalFresh qualifications to the Fort Bragg Food Bank, which has staff trained to assist with applications.
Bosma reported that the store has seen about an 8% increase in purchases of California-grown fruits and vegetables. Advertising signage is displayed on store windows and in the store as well. Bosma recalled that prior to the pandemic, she became aware of the high number of families provided with free or reduced lunch in the local schools. “We have so many people who struggle,” she commented. “Helping our community is one of our goals.”
Harvest Market, established in 1985 by Tom Honer, Jennifer Bosma’s father, who had operated Purity Market since 1982, has a long history of community support. Bosma noted that “since 1985, he employed many people and has helped the community in many ways.” The store has developed a solid place in the community and has expanded to include Mendosa Market and Mendocino Hardware in Mendocino. Currently, Jennifer’s spouse Tom Bosma is the president of the company.
In 2012, when the city mandated that businesses charge customers ten cents per bag, Harvest Market began its “In the Bag” program, encouraging customers to recycle their bags at the store. Returned bags could be reused at ten cents each, and the store then gave customers tokens to deposit into any of the store’s sponsored nonprofit bins. The tokens were then converted into dollars that the store donated to each nonprofit.
Bosma estimated that Harvest Market donates approximately $100,000 to nonprofits such as the Children’s Fund and Fort Bragg Food Bank. She explained that the “biggest focus has been on three organizations that I think each reach the most people in our community—the Senior Center, the Food Bank, and the Children’s Fund.” She added, “They do a lot of work to help many people.”
Bosma described the store’s efforts to assist the Children’s Fund during the pandemic by supplying the nonprofit with diapers below the store’s cost. When the longest federal government shutdown on record occurred in 2019, the local Coast Guard, many with young families, found themselves unpaid for an extended period of time. Bosma set up food accounts on credit at the store for them, which they could pay back later at no interest. “People need to eat,” she said.
During the pandemic, Bosma spent long hours shopping and delivering food orders to those in the community unable to come into the store and for customers too afraid of infection exposure to shop in person. “Deliveries every day,” said Bosma, “jumped from about ten to sixty. It took until seven o’clock at night to finish deliveries.”
Bosma is committed to the new pilot program and hopes that bill AB 605 will pass, providing extensive funding to expand the CalFresh EBT rebate program across the state. As it is, she noted, “Our community is hurting too with the housing issue. Now I cringe whenever I get a vendor’s cost change.”
She has also seen for herself the current flooding damage to some of her farm vendors’ crops in Salinas. An early result of the Pajaro River levee break is that some of her bulk orders haven’t been filled. Upcoming crop shortages due to the expected rapid snowmelt are unknown.
In spite of this, she is grateful to SPUR, her vendors, and the state program for providing another avenue of assistance to low-income families. She doesn’t regret the day she put her family vacation in Yellowstone on hold for a few hours to sit in the family’ s camper trailer and phone in for that first conference call with SPUR and all her vendors.
Bosma does have some advice for CalFresh participants shopping for California-grown fruits and vegetables. There is constant flux in the origin of any product on display. If as much as 25% of the product display is not California grown, the flag label has to be removed. “Don’t look at the packaging,” she advised. “Look at the labels on the shelves.”