The Food Trust

The Food Trust was founded in 1992 with a simple idea: healthy change.

There were neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia where residents couldn’t easily buy healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. And science shows us that people who live in these underserved neighborhoods are more at risk for serious diet-related diseases like obesity.

The Food Trust – then known as The Farmers’ Market Trust, an off-shoot of Philadelphia’s venerable Reading Terminal Market – began with one farmers’ market at Tasker Homes, a public housing development in South Philadelphia. Once a week, with the help of the Tasker Homes Tenant Council, we set up one long table overflowing with produce. It was the only source of fresh fruits and vegetables in the community. “People hadn’t seen that kind of quality produce in their neighborhood before,” The Food Trust founder Duane Perry recalls.

In the two decades since the opening of the Tasker Homes market, The Food Trust has worked with neighborhoods, schools, grocers, farmers and policymakers in Philadelphia and across the country to change how we all think about healthy food and to increase its availability.