Produce Prescription Program

The Montana Produce Prescription Collaborative (MTPRx) partners with healthcare providers across Montana to provide eligible patients with free fruits and vegetables from local farmers markets, farm stands and grocery stores. Addressing food insecurity and chronic health issues in Montana, while supporting local and sustainable agriculture, is the goal of this program.

Farm Connect works with healthcare institutions to track biomarkers and health indicators showing the impact eating fresh local fruits and vegetables can have on patient health outcomes. MTPRx provides an avenue for produce prescription programs serving rural areas to connect across the state to build a community of practice, learn from one another, and develop best practices.

MTPRx currently encompasses over eight active programs across 8 Montana counties and reaches over 250 families. In the last three years, MTRPx collectively redeemed over $160K in produce prescriptions.

FAST Blackfeet Food Pharmacy

Program Contact: Mackenzie Sachs RD - Mackenzie@fastblackfeet.org

FAST (Food Access and Sustainability Team) is a community non-profit on the Blackfeet reservation committed to bringing healthy food access and nutrition education to the Blackfeet Nation. In 2020, FAST partnered with the Tribal Health Clinic, the Southern Piegan Health Center, to form their Food Pharmacy program. This program provides participants with weekly vouchers to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables at these retail stores on the Blackfeet reservation: Glacier Family Foods, Teeples IGA, Glacier Park Trading Company, Glendale Colony Produce Stand, Suzie’s Store, St Mary Grocery. Participants are also given vouchers to purchase ground buffalo meat from the Blackfeet Tribal buffalo herd.

Health Partner: Southern Piegan Health Center
Grocery store partners: Teeple’s IGA Browning and Glacier Family Foods

Learn More

St. Patrick’s Prescription Produce Program

Program Contact: Merry Hutton - merry.hutton@providence.org

Originating in 2015 as a partnership between the St. Patrick Endocrinology Center and pop-up farmers markets located inside the hospital, and hosted by Garden City Harvest (GCH), the program partners with local grocery stores, Orange Street Food Farm (Missoula), and Super One (Polson) to provide be eligible participants with fruit and vegetable vouchers. Participants also have the choice to receive vouchers to spend at the Missoula Farmers Markets. Prioritizing local food while meeting participants where they are at is the goal of the program and determined the food retailers to partner with.

Health Partner: St. Patrick's Providence Hospital
Redemption locations: Missoula Valley Winter Market, Missoula Farmers Market, SuperOne Foods Ronan, Polson Farmers Market

Learn More

Land to Hand Food Rx

Program Contact: Mara Schradle - Mara@landtohand.org

Land to Hand (L2H) is a community non-profit committed to building a strong community food system that fosters socially just ways of accessing food in the Flathead Valley. In 2018, the Food Rx program began as partnership with the North Valley Hospital (now Logan Health Whitefish) and the local farmers market. In 2020, L2H expanded the program to include eight Logan Health clinics. Working with the Western Montana Growers Coop, participants could receive a year-round CSA share, or seasonal farmers market fruit and veggie vouchers. As the program has grown, Food Rx now contracts with Wicked Good Produce who curates CSA-style bags of regionally sourced fresh fruits and vegetables that participants receive bi-weekly. During the farmers market season, participants have the option to suspend their produce share delivery and visit their local farmers market in Kalispell or Whitefish to shop for their choice of produce with a weekly stipend.

Health Partners: Logan Health Primary Care locations, Logan Health School Based Clinics & Logan Health Diabetes Education and Prevention
Redemption Locations: Delivery locations throughout the Flathead, and Kalispell, Whitefish, & Columbia Falls Farmers Markets

Learn More

St. Peter’s Hospital Food Pharmacy

Program Contact: Jennifer Colegrove - j.colegrove@sphealth.org

In 2022, St. Peters Health began partnered with Helena Food Share to provide healthy food to participants experiencing food insecurity and managing a diet related chronic illness. With the onset of GusNIP funding and transitioning the program to focus on specifically fruits and vegetables, St. Peter’s transitioned their program into a retail model. This program chose to partner with WINCO due to affordability and accessibility of produce for participants. After redeeming the vouchers, participants send in pictures of the receipt to ensure purchases are being made on eligible items, and are then mailed the next month’s gift card.

Health Partner: St. Peter's Hospital
Redemption location: Helena Food Share

Learn More

2024 FoodRx Summit

The first ever in-person Montana Food Rx Summit was hosted on September 23rd in Missoula Montana, by Community Food and Agriculture Coalition (CFAC) in partnership with Montana DPHHS and the Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger (MT-Pech). The goal of the convening was to bring stakeholders together to advance produce prescription programming and food as medicine initiatives in the state.

The summit provided space for collaboration, discussions, learning from local and national program experts, and increasing knowledge and connectivity through discussing opportunities to grow and collaborate sustainably. The variety of sessions provided allowed attendees to gain insight into local Montana programs, learn from the evaluation team about program impacts and outcomes, hear from a variety of nutrition experts, dive into discussions surrounding needs and successes, and participate in a indigenous cooking demonstration and tasting. The summit highlighted the need for continuous connection and partnerships across Montana, the need for a solid framework and resources for new programs to succeed, and high level conversations as to to continue to build sustainability across programs through policy.

Food Rx Summit Agenda

Food Pharmacy | Fruits and Vegetables | Farm Connect Montana | MTPRx

Produce Prescription Program

Participating Programs

FAST Blackfeet Food Pharmacy

St. Patrick’s Prescription Produce Program

Land to Hand Food Rx

St. Peter’s Hospital Food Pharmacy

2024 FoodRx Summit

In the News

Resources