WASHINGTON – Vintners Distributors Inc., which owns and operates more than 120 convenience stores including the Loop Neighborhood stores in California, announced this week that they had made a commitment to Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), an organization devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation’s youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. Vintners Distributors joined several housing developers and six colleges in announcing new commitments to the childhood obesity fight, at PHA’s 2015 Building a Healthier Future Summit.
“The leaders, companies, universities and colleges that made a commitment today are taking a stance against childhood obesity at a moment in time when we must step FORWARD and not back,” said PHA CEO Lawrence Soler. “Today … we are moving closer to our goal of making healthier choices easier for parents, students and families across the country.”
Convenience stores have the potential to bring healthier foods to places that traditionally have limited access to fresh, affordable produce and other healthier options. In announcing its relationship with PHA, Vintners Distributors joins convenience retailers, such as Kwik Trip and Sheetz, in committing to make healthier options easier at all of its current and future Loop Neighborhood stores. This includes offering healthier products, increasing affordability of those products, increasing marketing and promotion of healthier items, offering bicycle racks for its patrons and bike storage for its employees where possible and providing a 20% discount to employee purchases of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Other groups joining with PHA this week were housing developers Blue Sea Development Company, Urban Ventures LLC and Vitus Group, which pledged to prioritize health and incorporate active design strategies into at least 80% of their affordable housing development projects over the next three years. Additionally six college campuses — American University, Bucknell University, Leech Lake Tribal College, Loyola Marymount University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Saint Louis University — are committing to improve healthier habits on campus through PHA’s Healthier Campus Initiative.
The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation’s youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010, PHA was created in conjunction with — but independent from — First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end childhood obesity.