Exploring Enablers of and Barriers to a Fruit and Vegetable Voucher Scheme in England: Insights from the Fresh Street Community Feasibility Study.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Many deprived communities in the UK have low fruit and vegetable (FV) intake, leading to poor health outcomes. Fresh Street is a place-based voucher approach that enables households to buy FV from local independent suppliers. Fresh Street Community embeds this approach within community hubs, thus enabling households to use vouchers to purchase FV from community centres. This paper explores the enablers and barriers influencing the uptake of Fresh Street Community in two UK urban areas of high deprivation.

METHODS

This three-phase exploratory qualitative study was informed by 'co-production' with community researchers at both sites: (1) literature review and observations identifying enablers and barriers in FV voucher schemes; (2) semi-structured interviews and focus groups with the research team and community food researchers to 'validate' the factors identified in phase 1 and to develop explanatory narratives for these factors; and (3) participatory and thematic analysis of the enablers and barriers to finalise the identified factors.

RESULTS

A total of ten enablers and sixteen barriers were validated across both sites. However, differences in local contexts and operational procedures impacted future FV voucher scheme implementation. The important role of community food researchers to engage participants and support the synthesis of findings is also presented.

CONCLUSIONS

This study offers practical and critical insights for researchers, community food researchers, and practitioners on factors that influence a community centre-based FV voucher scheme to address nutritional inequalities.