State’s CalFresh fruit and vegetable program restarts with $10 million in new funding

MENDOCINO CO., 12/19/24 — As food prices continue to rise, there is one bright star this holiday season. The state’s CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Pilot Program is back, just in time to provide much-needed food dollars to families facing food insecurity.

The CalFresh Pilot gives recipients of CalFresh benefits a dollar back for every dollar spent on fruits and vegetables at participating California retailers. The refund is seamless: recipients use their EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer) cards to pay for groceries and instantly receive a dollar credit back to their cards for eligible fruit and vegetable purchases, up to $60 a month.

Harvest Market, which was the first brick-and-mortar store in the state to offer the program when it started in March 2023, is again offering CalFresh Pilot benefits at both its Fort Bragg and Mendocino stores, the only grocery store in the county to do so.

Jennifer Bosma, Harvest Market’s vice president, said the company was eager to participate from the get-go. “We give back as much as we can,” she said. Bosma, whose father started the company 40 years ago this May, said the company is continuing a tradition that started at its inception.

The CalFresh Pilot “was forced to pause in April” of last year, said Eli Zigas, executive director of Fullwell, a nonprofit that’s co-sponsoring the drive to expand the program. Now, thanks to $10 million in funding authorized by the California state lgislature, it is once again available, until the money runs out.

The goal is to make the fruit and vegetable benefit “a permanent supplement” to the CalFresh program, Zigas said. “We want to “build this program so that people can count on it and have it available statewide.”

In the greater Bay Area, the CalFresh Pilot is available at grocery outlets in Alameda, Santa Clara and Monterey counties, according to the California Department of Social Services website. Most of the approximately 90 retail locations currently offering the program are in Southern California.

CalFresh is part of the federally mandated Supplemental Nutrition Benefits Assistance program (formerly known as food stamps). The purpose of the CalFresh Pilot is “to develop and refine a scalable model for increasing the purchase and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables” that could then by adopted by retailers, large and small, in multiple locations, the social services’ department website says.

Harvest’s Bosma encouraged EBT cardholders to take advantage of the program while it lasts. “If you’re not coming and getting your fruits and vegetables,” she said, “you’re not getting free money.”

Learn more about how the CalFresh Pilot works here. Click here for information about eligibility for CalFresh benefits.