Giant Food, a leading greater Washington, DC, regional grocery chain, announced its participation in the Produce Rx pilot program in partnership with local nonprofit DC Greens to give customers better access to healthy food.

Through the program, customers who are Medicaid beneficiaries through AmeriHealth Caritas DC and who are currently experiencing a diet-related chronic illness can receive a prescription for fruits and vegetables from their healthcare provider and fill the prescriptions at the Giant pharmacy. Customers may fill prescriptions during their weekly shopping trips at the in-store Giant pharmacy. When filled each week, a Giant pharmacist will provide the customer with a $20 coupon to be used to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from the store's produce department.

"Giant Food is excited to be bringing the Produce Rx program to our local Alabama Avenue store," said Gordon Reid, president at Giant Food. "As a food retailer, we recognize the important role we can play in the access to healthy foods and health education, and the program is certainly a natural fit with our ongoing efforts to support the health needs of the communities we serve."

The motivation behind implementing Produce Rx was to further support hunger relief efforts, nutrition counseling and access to healthy foods. Giant continuously aims to build healthy communities through its team of expert in-store nutritionists and pharmacists, the Guiding Starts nutrition rating system, the Nutrition Made Easy! Podcast and more. In 2018, Giant donated over 5 million pounds of food to hunger relief and nutrition education resources.

"We believe that cross-sector partnerships are the only way to achieve health equity in our city," said Lauren Shweder Biel, executive director of DC Greens. "Doctors and patients both need more tools to address food insecurity and diet-related chronic illness. Through Produce Rx, our healthcare system can be a driver to get patients access to the healthy food that they want and need."

The Produce Rx pilot program will run through Dec. 31 and customers may renew their prescriptions with their healthcare providers throughout the program. The pilot will kickoff with 500 AmeriHealth patients, with the hope to expand to more individuals in the future.