Official Site of The State of New Jersey

The New Jersey Food Fund ("NJFF" or the "Fund") 2026 Grantmaking Cycle is supported by OFSA's Regional Innovation Pilot Program - Public/Private Partnership Matching Grant Program. NJFF is a collaborative grantmaking fund advancing long-term, equitable food security solutions across New Jersey. Working at the intersection of philanthropy, nonprofit leadership, and state government, the Fund invests in high-impact nonprofit organizations and coalitions to ensure every New Jersey resident is food secure.

The NJFF expanded its 2026 Harvest the Future grantmaking, awarding seven additional grantees funding to test innovative, 12-month pilot projects in alignment with Focus Area 2 of the Statewide Food Security Strategic Plan. The grantees will continue their funded work through May 2027 as follows: 

+ Catholic Charities - Diocese of Paterson is building out an urban hydroponic farm operation in the City of Passaic, with a goal of producing year-round fresh lettuce for 16,000 monthly pantry shoppers across the three locations of the Father English Food Pantry. 

+ New Jersey Council of County Colleges is regranting its funding across the state's 18 community colleges to build their own "farm-to-table" food procurement partnership and local food pantry partnerships in ways that reflect and meet the unique needs of their campus communities.

+ Virtua Health Foundation is expanding its Food is Medicine program by bringing its mobile grocery and mobile food farmacy to Hammonton and Washington Township (Gloucester County), where patients traditionally face transportation challenges. Additionally, the Foundation is using its award to purchase more food from NJ growers and aggregators.

+ Greater Mount Zion Community Development Corporation is launching a maternal health pilot for expectant mothers in Trenton in which they can access produce vouchers with complementary information about nutrition and local food systems, meaning they will gain financial resources to afford food along with the nutritional knowledge to utilize food to meet their needs.

+ Foodshed Alliance is buying surplus produce from NJ farmers at fair prices, processing it into shelf-stable products, then providing those products to area food pantries, food banks and other charitable feeding partners. On a larger scale, the partners are testing a model for reducing the amount of food that goes to waste on farmland, in a way that is financially sustainable for the farmers.

+ STEAM URBAN and the additional partners of the Food & Health Equity Coalition of Essex County are operating six weekly pilot farmers' markets located at WIC offices and senior housing sites in Newark, Irvington, and the Oranges, and featuring exclusively locally grown and harvested food through the end of the 2026 growing season.

+ The Opportunity League is launching the Villages Community Marketplace to provide Burlington City residents with increased access to fresh food, education, employment, food business incubator opportunities and social connections through a multi-purpose site and integrated programming.

Additionally, NJFF has retained the Center for Nutrition & Health Impact to gather and analyze data throughout the grant period. The Center's findings will provide deeper insight into the outcomes of these local efforts, and identify successes and learnings that can inform broader-level changes so the food system and everyday opportunities to interact with it, work better for all New Jerseyans.

Learn more project details, including the local and multisector partners involved in each, in the NJFF's news release on its website.

This project supports the New Jersey Food Security Strategic Plan through Strategy 2.1 Food Access and Availability Infrastructure; Strategy 2.2 Agriculture Workforce and Land Access; Strategy 2.3 Market Channel Creation; and Strategy 2.4 Food Enterprise Investment.