Only 1 in 10 Americans eat the recommended amount of fresh produce. And according to the CDC, adults are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables as their income goes up. Think about it. This tells you almost everything you need to know. This isn't a knowledge problem. People aren't skipping vegetables because they don't know better. They're skipping them because produce is harder to reach, and increasingly harder to afford.
The access gap is widening, not closing
Food prices keep climbing, and the reasons stack up fast: trade tensions, extreme weather events, geopolitical disruptions, and, most recently, rising diesel prices driving up the cost of getting produce from farm to store. Fresh vegetable prices are forecast to increase more than 5% in 2026 and even more into 2027.
At the same time, funding cuts have caused enrollment in food assistance programs to decrease sharply. So the exact moment produce is getting more expensive to buy is the same moment fewer people have help paying for it. That combination is exactly the kind of systemic squeeze BrightSide exists to counteract.
What access actually changes
Research from Tufts University found that a national produce prescription program could prevent nearly 300,000 cardiovascular disease cases and save the healthcare system close to $40 billion over a lifetime. That's the scale of what's possible when produce access becomes part of healthcare, not separate from it.
We're seeing that play out in our own Food as Medicine program. Among our patients:
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90% report they're better able to manage their health
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74% saw lower blood pressure
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73% saw lower HbA1c, a key marker for blood sugar control
Numbers like that are meaningful on their own. But one patient put it more plainly than any statistic could:
"The program is life changing. Allowed me to have two side dishes of fruits and vegetables with every meal. Before the program, I mostly ate beans and rice."
Why this is the whole model
None of this works by telling people vegetables are good for them. It works by making produce as easy to get as anything else on the shelf, through corner stores in food deserts, Pay What You Can deliveries, and produce prescribed directly by a healthcare provider.
If there's a single most overlooked public health tool in America right now, it might not be a new drug. It might be a produce aisle that's actually within reach.