By: Sheila Crowley
Murray County News Staffwriter
A method of transforming food shelves into more welcoming places with a wide variety of healthy food choices is continuing to expand across the state of Minnesota.
Instead of the stale atmosphere of rows and rows of non-perishable items on shelves, the transformed space will look more like a grocery store. By transforming the space the idea is to help clients make better food choices. Healthy food is expensive so the idea of offering fresh fruits and vegetables is a way of nudging clients towards a healthier choice. In addition, items that fit that healthier lifestyle will be placed at eye-level. Cooking is encouraged so items will be grouped in different ways to accommodate this idea. The idea behind the movement is to make the food shelf a welcoming dignified experience for everyone that walks through the door.
Behavioral economics shows that people tend to take 50% more of what’s offered to them first.
SuperShelf was built out of a 2012 partnership between Lakeview Health Partners and Valley Outreach, call Better Shelf for Better Health. This partnership transformed Valley Outreach’s food shelf, and the methods were shared with several other food shelves. A pilot evaluation study from Duke-UNC BECR combined with funding from UMN Extension Family Development/SNAP-Ed was formed. As the SuperShelf partnership has grown, it has become a movement with more and more transformed food shelves across Minnesota.
In 2017 the SuperShelf partnership received National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to expand and formally evaluate the project.
That year NIH awarded 16 grants, however, the area favored was the metro. Murray County was one of the food shelves that applied for this initial grant but wasn’t awarded. Bonnie Christensen, who works with the SNAP-Ed program, helped the group write the grant and apply for the funding. The SuperShelf team underestimated the number of requests they received from outstate Minnesota and did regret they couldn’t help everyone who had applied.
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