• Eat.Move.Save. Booths: Eat. Move. Save. booths are more than just your typical information table; they are engaging and fun! Topics range from healthy snacks ideas to how to prepare some of the food that might be buried deep in the pantry or taking up space in the fridge. Handouts, recipes, and taste tests may also be available.
• Adult classes: For adults, three curricula options are available for engaging lessons on healthy lifestyle choices: Healthy Cents, MyPlate for My Family, and Create Better Health. Our team members can help you determine the right curriculum for your location and audience.
  • Healthy Cents is a curriculum for adults designed to teach how to save more money while making healthy food choices. Each lesson provides a connection to food budgeting along with the nutrition topic. One example is a lesson on starting a container garden for vegetables and herbs.
  • MyPlate for My Family is based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and designed for adults who are parents or caregivers to youth ages 2 to 18.
  • Create Better Health is a curriculum designed to teach adults how to use foods on hand to make nourishing meals. Topics include food budgeting, nutrition, physical activity, and cooking demonstrations.
  • Volunteer training: INEP staff can provide informal or formal training to support volunteers. Training topics could include Client Choice Pantries, Bundling, Healthy Nudges, and more.

The Nutrition Environment Food Pantry Toolkit is a Policy, Systems and Environmental (PSE) change intervention designed to create pantry spaces where the healthy choice is the easy choice, and that promote dignity and inclusivity. The toolkit includes site implementation materials that support pantries and technical assistance providers in carrying out small and large-scale interventions specific to food distribution styles, pantry layout, promotion techniques of healthful foods, variety of fruits and vegetables available, accessibility of information about community resources, and meeting the needs of diverse pantry audiences. Pantry-level interventions are meant to be low or no-cost. 

The toolkit includes two validated environmental assessments, the original Nutrition Environment Food Pantry Assessment Tool (NEFPAT) and the 2023 enhanced version called NEFPAT Plus (NEFPAT+). These tools help users plan interventions and capture PSE changes made in food pantries. Users can select whichever tool best meets the needs of their organization and/or partner. Ideally, pre-intervention assessments are done before changes are made at the pantry and help to inform the intervention plan. Post-intervention assessments are typically conducted 4-6 months after the pre-assessment and initial intervention period. Repeat assessments can be done to evaluate additional intervention periods, until sustainability is achieved.

NEFPAT and NEFPAT+ are available in our Resource Library. The NEFPAT+ technical assistance and resource guide is currently undergoing graphic treatment and will be released as soon as it is completed. For implementation resources including sample policies, flyers, shelf-talkers, produce handling/storage materials, healthy donation templates, food prep videos, photo recipes, etc., please email us at eatmovesave@illinois.edu. 

NEFPAT+ Development (Current version)

In 2022, NEFPAT developers began a comprehensive review of the original NEFPAT to incorporate new empirical evidence, emergency food system nutrition standards, and user feedback. The revised version, NEFPAT Plus, underwent pilot-testing at 5 Illinois food pantries, expert content validity testing by 18 professionals and inter-rater and test-retest reliability testing at 21 food pantries spaced approximately one month apart. Test results demonstrate the content validity, inter-rater and test-retest reliability of NEFPAT Plus which is currently under review for publication. Additional analysis details will be released at the time of publication.

The tool was updated to include nutrition standards based on the Healthy Eating Research Guidelines for Charitable Food System as well as other newly published research and aspects of equity and culture, and changes to the charitable food system.

For inquiries about research collaborations and using NEFPAT or NEFPAT+ in the field, please contact us at eatmovesave@illinois.edu 

NEFPAT Development 

In a peer-reviewed Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior publication,  the NEFPAT was found to be a content valid and interrater reliable instrument for evaluating the food pantry nutrition environment. The overall tool and each of its objectives had high content validity when evaluated by emergency food experts. The average rating of each objective was 3.9 out of 4.0, ± 0.1. Interviews with pilot-testers indicated NEFPAT was positively received and a valuable asset in the field. Pilot-testers suggested minor changes to increase clarity and collect pantry characteristics. Pilot-testers found that observations took ~20–30 minutes to complete, with additional time for pantry engagement. Developers determined that inter-rater reliability for NEFPAT was above the strong threshold (>0.7).

A follow-up publication in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior details pre/post NEFPAT scores from the IL pilot and statewide food pantry intervention phases, 2016-2018 and 2017-2020 respectively. Matched pre/post assessments were analyzed to evaluate changes in pantry nutrition environments after the provision of technical assistance by SNAP-Ed staff who collected data from and provided technical assistance to food pantries in their geographic area. Six staff conducted all NEFPAT observations in the pilot phase and 35 staff assessed and assisted pantries in the statewide phase. In the pilot phase, two objectives on the NEFPAT observation increased significantly among 23 pantries with pre/post data. In the statewide phase, most NEFPAT objectives and the overall NEFPAT score (22.12 +/- 8.16 vs 28.20 +/- 7.14, p <0.001) significantly increased among 66 pantries with pre/post data. 

The Food Bank Health and Nutrition Assessment, or FB-HANA, helps food banks and technical assistance providers gain new insights about health and nutrition strategies and identify areas for growth in organizational practices and policies. Click on the link below to complete the assessment!

Completing the FB-HANA takes about 60-90 minutes and is ideally done in a pre- and post-assessment format so progress can be measured over time. Results from the pre-assessment can be used to identify areas of opportunity and guide short, medium, and long-term action planning and goal setting. The appropriate timing of the post-assessment depends on the level and scope of changes in the action plan, the amount of time needed to implement changes, and the pace at which changes are incorporated into the organization. It is recommended that post-assessments occur no sooner than 6-9 months after implementation begins. It would not be unreasonable for this time to extend past 12 months, given the depth of work and size of the organization.

Links and resources

• FB-HANA assessment can be found at go.illinois.edu/FB-HANA
• FB-HANA report template can be accessed on our Resource Library
• Sample action plan (coming soon to Resource Library)
• Nutrition policy templates (coming soon to Resource Library)

For additional implementation and support resources, consider referring to Feeding America's Nutrition in Food Banking Toolkit.

Development details

The FB-HANA was developed based on a literature review and guidance from professionals and content experts in the charitable food system. The tool was pilot-tested before being reviewed by an expert panel for content validity, and finally tested in Illinois for interrater and test-retest reliability. A manuscript with full details of the development and evaluation of the FB-HANA is in development.

For inquiries about research collaborations and using FB-HANA in the field, please contact Caitlin Kownacki at caitlink@illinois.edu.

University of Illinois SNAP-Education is a contributing partner of the Illinois Farm to Food Bank Program, an initiative whose goal is to build a long lasting, sustainable system creating a relationship of farms working directly with food banks to increase food access, economic dollars within the state, profitability for Illinois farmers, community revitalization and reduce food waste. In contribution to the initiative, University of Illinois Extension SNAP-Education conducted food pantry manager focus groups in July of 2021 to learn about the challenges and opportunities of distributing fresh foods in Illinois food pantries.

Findings from the focus groups pointed to four broad themes:

1. Food pantry sourcing strategies and contextual factors;
2. Food pantry challenges and barriers to fresh food distribution;
3. Facilitators of fresh food distribution in food pantries; and
4. Next steps and opportunities to improve fresh food distribution.

To view or download the full report click in our Resource Library. For questions or inquiries about the project, please contact contact us at eatmovesave@illinois.edu