Doctors, farmers, grocers and policy experts packed into WHYY-NPR Studios in Center City on Tuesday for the launch of the Philadelphia Food as Medicine Coalition, a new effort to connect nutrition with health care across a city where life expectancy can swing by two decades depending on the zip code. The gathering, called the Food First Health Summit, brought together nonprofits, insurers, farmers and legislators to talk through one central idea: food itself can function as medicine, and Philadelphia's fragmented food-access programs need to work together rather than separately.
According to WHYY, the coalition aims to address food waste, access to fresh produce, supply chain issues and nutrition education by bringing together doctors, policy experts, farmers, grocers, nutritionists, food and meal donation nonprofits, and legislators. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the coalition officially launched Tuesday at its first annual Food First Health Summit at WHYY-NPR Studios, describing it as the creation of Mike Cangi, whose company FareRx provides medically appropriate groceries to people with chronic conditions. The coalition's own website, by contrast, described the effort as still being built, with Tuesday marking the first time it convened — a discrepancy neither account resolved.
A 20-Year Gap Between Neighborhoods
Jennifer Ibrahim, dean of Temple University's College of Public Health, told the summit that health outcomes can differ dramatically over short distances, and that Philadelphia should not have a 20-year lifespan gap between neighboring zip codes, per WHYY's reporting. The coalition's website puts a finer point on that disparity, citing a life-expectancy range of 68 years in North Philadelphia versus 88 years in Old City and Society Hill — a gap spanning roughly five miles. Ibrahim said at the summit that medically tailored meals, nutrition education and produce prescriptions can help make healthy food more affordable for residents caught on the wrong side of that divide.
The scale of the underlying need is substantial. More than one in six Philadelphia residents experiences food insecurity, according to Feeding America data cited by WHYY, and the coalition's website separately reports that roughly 496,000 Philadelphia residents relied on SNAP benefits as of June 2024. Feeding America's 2024 Map the Meal Gap analysis, using 2022 data, put Philadelphia County's child food-insecurity rate at 30.4%. Those numbers track with trends documented by Philabundance, which found that more than 600,000 people in its service area were food insecure in 2022, a 25% jump from the year before that pushed the regional food-insecurity rate to 10.8%, up from 8.7% in 2021.
Founding Members and a Patchwork of Programs
Temple University's College of Public Health and Food Tank are founding members of the coalition, the Inquirer reported, and the summit itself was hosted by Food Tank, FareRx and Temple, with AmeriHealth Caritas serving as sponsor, according to the coalition's website. Rather than replacing existing efforts, the group says its role is to connect the people already doing the work — the website states plainly that the opportunity is not to claim this work as the coalition's but to help link organizations already active in the space.
One of those organizations is the Food Trust, which has used a food-as-medicine approach since it opened in the early 1990s, according to WHYY. Julia Koprak, the Food Trust's director of incentives, health care and policy, said stakeholder convenings like Tuesday's are generating increasing energy around food, nutrition and health, and emphasized that starting early — with pregnant and postpartum women and young children, and resources for fruits and vegetables — can improve outcomes. The Food Trust, based in Philadelphia, runs a produce-prescription program along with cooking demonstrations and regional nutrition education, and its Food Bucks Rx initiative lets hospital providers give eligible patients prescriptions redeemable for fresh produce at participating corner stores, farmers markets and supermarkets.
Farmers and Food Rescuers Weigh In
Briana Mills-Walker, known as Farmer Bri, directs agricultural education and research at FarmerJawn Agriculture, an urban farming operation in greater Philadelphia. She told the summit that local food systems can connect people with nearby food and with the relationship between human and environmental health, and that food-access work should aim to give people choice regardless of socioeconomic background, per WHYY's account.
Evan Ehlers, founder and CEO of Sharing Excess, pointed to waste as a core piece of the puzzle. He said reducing food waste and improving how produce is sourced and distributed can help address both access and affordability barriers, noting that healthy food often goes to waste in communities where residents cannot access it — a dynamic WHYY reports plays out as tens of millions of pounds of fresh produce head to landfills daily because of supply-chain difficulties. Ehlers got his start in 2016 distributing surplus college dining-plan meals to people on the street near Drexel University, and Sharing Excess has since grown into a national food-rescue nonprofit that redistributes surplus food to food banks, pantries and community fridges; separately, the nonprofit has said it rescues between 30,000 and 50,000 pounds of food daily from the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, according to CBS News Philadelphia.
Federal Policy and What Comes Next
A federal policy panel at the summit featured U.S. Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon and Madeleine Dean, moderated by Maiken Scott, while a separate food-is-medicine panel was moderated by Beatrice Forman of the Inquirer, according to WHYY. Other participants tied to the summit included Lauren Eberly, affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and the Indian Health Service; Karen Lin of Temple University's Lewis Katz School of Medicine; and Julia Weatherly of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Coalition members hope to convene a Food First Health Summit at least annually and plan to work more closely together to advance food-as-medicine strategies in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, per WHYY's reporting. The Philadelphia Tribune reports organizers hope to eventually draw participants from across the Mid-Atlantic region, a goal that comes against a backdrop documented by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, which found that 81% of food-retail outlets in the city primarily stock unhealthy foods with limited fresh produce.
The Inquirer reported that the coalition's working group plans to meet regularly to identify community needs and explore clinical programs, research and funding opportunities, with the broader goal of leveraging health systems, agricultural researchers, farmers and local organizations to scale initiatives and reach children and families before diet-related chronic diseases take hold. That ambition follows recommendations from Philadelphia City Council's Food and Nutrition Security Task Force, which called for a coordinated food-as-medicine strategy linking health care with healthy food access after gathering public testimony, listening sessions and stakeholder interviews throughout 2025 and 2026, according to Philadelphia City Council.
