The Sioux Falls Food Council: Helping Residents Eat Well

After the Sioux Falls Health Department completed its first Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) in 2012, the Live Well Sioux Falls program was created, and one community priority that emerged was nutrition. As the Live Well Sioux Falls team explored this topic, they formed a stakeholder group to help address nutrition and food access. Working with SDSU Extension, they created the first Sioux Falls Food Council in 2015, comprised of a diverse group of stakeholders. Because South Dakota ranked 48th in the nation for fruit and vegetable consumption, the group decided one of their first projects would be to enlist local chefs to create recipes using fruits and vegetables from SDSU Extension’s “Pick It, Try It, Like It.” program. These recipes were distributed city-wide each month to promote fruit and vegetable consumption. The Food Council continued to meet quarterly and, in 2016, partnered with Cooking Matters to begin a Grocery Store Tour Program.

With competing priorities and staffing changes, the Food Council took a temporary break in their work during 2017. But now, they are back stronger than ever! In 2018, after a membership survey and strategic planning that engaged the entire team, the Sioux Falls Food Council was reinvigorated and formed committees that help to provide more engagement and leadership among its members. The committees reflect the strategic priorities of the council and allow members to use their strengths and expertise to increase nutrition in the community. The committees include: Policy, Education and Awareness, Farm-To-School, Farmer’s Markets and Local Foods. With these committees, the council is more productive and continues to work in all of these areas to live out their mission: “Through community-based strategies, we will cultivate food security, support local, sustainable food systems, and improve access to affordable, healthy food for all residents of Sioux Falls.”

Since the 2018 relaunch of the Food Council, the Farm-To-School Committee partnered with a school district to provide local produce as part of their school lunches and also hosted a planting and harvesting day where kids were able to grow their own microgreens, harvest them and try them. The Education and Awareness Committee developed a story map to help tell the story of food and nutrition in Sioux Falls. The Farmer’s Market Committee is hard at work with local farmer’s markets to integrate the use of SNAP benefits, and the Local Foods Committee is busy planning a local foods event for next spring. Finally, the Policy Committee is researching policies that could be implemented at the local level to increase the nutritional value of items that can be purchased at facilities such as the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center and the Midco Aquatic Center.

The Food Council also helped to develop the Healthy Place program that allows restaurants to be labeled as a “healthy place” if they meet a set of nutrition and health criteria. The Food Council also continues its partnership with Cooking Matters and provided 150 grocery store tours to members of the community last year. This past summer, they also partnered with several local agencies to create the Summer Meals Program handout that featured the bus routes that were closest to every location. This handout was distributed to all Sioux Falls Public School children and at many locations throughout the city. They also became a member of the Food Policy Network at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

The Sioux Falls Food Council is excited about the many opportunities to help local residents Eat Well. To learn more about their work or to get involved visit: http://livewellsiouxfalls.org/eat-well/food-policy-council/ or email livewell@siouxfalls.org.