their goals, and how best to ensure program success, sustainability, and The scalability.” authors evaluate the effectiveness of the Los Angeles Community Market Conversion (CMC) program through background research and direct evaluation in order to determine if it is preliminarily successful. They are also interested in what elements contribute to a sustainable corner store conversion program. Corner store conversions are a new approach to increasing the availability of healthy food to neighborhoods. Due to this, they are not well studied and their impact is difficult to measure. However, prior research indicates that the introduction of larger retailers have positive health effects, coupled with some negative economic impacts on small businesses. Convenience store conversions mitigate this negative through engagement with the community and existing businesses. The Los Angeles program was partially successful, but due to a restructuring of the sponsoring agency, was not completely implemented at the time of this evaluation. Azrilian, J., Kwan, A., Linthicum, M., & Wolfson, J. (2012, May). Creating Healthy Corner Stores: An analysis of factors necessary for effective corner store conversion programs. Retrieved May 31, 2016, from City of Minneapolis Healthy Corner Stores Initiative Policy Type: Facility Enhancement Program, Health Education Program Impact: Citywide Funding: State of Minnesota Department of Health and the Statewide Health Improvement Program Starting in 2010, Minneapolis undertook a Healthy Corner Stores Initiative. They began with ten stores participating in the program; in 2012 they expanded to 30. The program targeted corner stores with enhancements to encourage them to sell more produce, and included education of the public such as cooking demonstrations. They collected data before, during and after the active program period and found that while their efforts were impactful, total sales volume of produce was quite small in general. Researchers found that stores had a 146% increase in produce transactions, compared to an “intervention 11% decrease in produce transactions among the end of the last follow-up control stores…By period in May, intervention stores increased their sales of fresh produce by 171% and MHD found the increase to be statistically significant (p=0.01).While this shows produce sales continue to grow post-intervention, produce remains, on average, less than 1% of total stores sales.” It is notable that sales volumes continued to grow after active engagement work ended. Program components included: Recruitment of stores to participate in the program. Technical assistance to support data collection and provide assistance to owners. Visual assessments and owner interviews.
their goals, and how best to ensure program success, sustainability, and scalability.” The authors evaluate the effectiveness of the Los Angeles Community Market Conversion (CMC) program through background research and direct evaluation in order to determine if it is preliminarily successful. They are also interested in what elements contribute to a sustainable corner store conversion program. Corner store conversions are a new approach to increasing the availability of healthy food to neighborhoods. Due to this, they are not well studied and their impact is difficult to measure. However, prior research indicates that the introduction of larger retailers have positive health effects, coupled with some negative economic impacts on small businesses. Convenience store conversions mitigate this negative through engagement with the community and existing businesses. The Los Angeles program was partially successful, but due to a restructuring of the sponsoring agency, was not completely implemented at the time of this evaluation. Azrilian, J., Kwan, A., Linthicum, M., & Wolfson, J. (2012, May). Creating Healthy Corner Stores: An analysis of factors necessary for effective corner store conversion programs. Retrieved May 31, 2016, from City of Minneapolis Healthy Corner Stores Initiative Policy Type: Facility Enhancement Program, Health Education Program Impact: Citywide Funding: State of Minnesota Department of Health and the Statewide Health Improvement Program Starting in 2010, Minneapolis undertook a Healthy Corner Stores Initiative. They began with ten stores participating in the program; in 2012 they expanded to 30. The program targeted corner stores with enhancements to encourage them to sell more produce, and included education of the public such as cooking demonstrations. They collected data before, during and after the active program period and found that while their efforts were impactful, total sales volume of produce was quite small in general. Researchers found that “intervention stores had a 146% increase in produce transactions, compared to an 11% decrease in produce transactions among control stores…By the end of the last follow-up period in May, intervention stores increased their sales of fresh produce by 171% and MHD found the increase to be statistically significant (p=0.01).While this shows produce sales continue to grow post-intervention, produce remains, on average, less than 1% of total stores sales.” It is notable that sales volumes continued to grow after active engagement work ended. Program components included: Recruitment of stores to participate in the program. Technical assistance to support data collection and provide assistance to owners. Visual assessments and owner interviews.
GroceryResearch-CaseStudies2016.docx