WASHINGTON, DC - If you’ve been keeping up with AndNowUKnow for the past week, you already know that the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA) recently hosted the Washington Conference in partnership with the White House. With many produce advocates already on Capitol Hill, it was the perfect time for the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. There, a new, national nutrition blueprint for the United States was unveiled with the goal to end hunger and dramatically reduce diet-related disease by 2030.

“We were asked to come to the table with ways our industry could contribute to the overall Conference goals that fall outside the purview of the federal government’s capabilities,” wrote Cathy Burns, Chief Executive Officer of the IFPA, in a statement released to the industry.

According to the release, those contributions included:

• The launch of a new public database in 2023 called Produce in the Public Interest to house and disseminate research about fruit and vegetable consumption with a focus on identifying and mitigating barriers to improving national eating habits
• To produce and disseminate culturally informed, consumer-friendly resources to improve the public’s nutrition literacy
• To facilitate a public-private partnership with the Partnership for a Healthier America, Indianapolis, and Denver to double residents’ consumption of fruits and vegetables by 2030, then using lessons learned as a model to move to additional cities

The IFPA based many of these initiatives off of its eight-point fruit and vegetable moonshot that exemplified why produce is central to the United States nutrition security blueprint. According to Burns’ statement, six of those eight points were highly influential in the blueprint.

As we at ANUK continue to report on the important work of IFPA and other organizations, please keep following along.

International Fresh Produce Association