Shop Healthy NYC!
Shop Healthy NYC! works to increase access to healthy foods in neighborhoods with high rates of nutrition-related diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. The program works with food retailers like bodegas and supermarkets, food suppliers, distributors, local community residents, and organizations in neighborhoods that have little access to healthy foods.
Nearly 2,000 stores participate in Shop Healthy NYC! across the city. Shop Healthy NYC! works in the following neighborhoods:
- Bronx: West Farms/Fordham, Claremont-Morrisania, East Tremont, Hunts Point, Mott Haven, Longwood and Morris Heights
- Brooklyn: Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville and East New York
- Manhattan: East, Central and West Harlem
Learn how Shop Healthy NYC! encourages better access to healthy foods.
Get Involved
You can help promote healthy eating with Shop Healthy NYC! Here are a few ways to encourage local food retailers to provide healthy options, such as fruits and vegetables, 100% whole wheat bread and low-sodium canned goods:
- Fill out Shop Healthy NYC! Postcards (PDF) and deliver them to retailers in your community. To get these postcards by mail, call 311 and ask for Shop Healthy postcards.
- The How to Adopt a Shop Guide (PDF) offers tips for working with retailers and encouraging them to provide healthy options in their stores.
- If your community organization is interested in improving a neighborhood’s food environment by working with food suppliers, distributors and other community groups, see the Shop Healthy Implementation Guide: An innovative approach to changing the food retail environment (PDF).
- Free Shop Healthy NYC materials are available for community members, organizations, and businesses. Materials include posters, guides, and other resources that support healthier food choices in neighborhoods across New York City. To request printed materials, call 311 and ask for Shop Healthy NYC materials from the Health Department.
Retail Challenge
Each year, food retailers participate in the Shop Healthy NYC! Retail Challenge. The program challenges stores to stock more healthy products, place them in noticeable locations in the store and increase their sales.
Stores that meet these goals and maintain them for at least one month receive a recognition award from their local Borough President's Office. This award recognizes their efforts to offer healthy choices for their communities.
From 2013 to 2019, 368 stores in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan received this award for their participation in Shop Healthy NYC.
For more information, visit NYC Open Data: Recognized Shop Healthy Stores.
How Shop Healthy NYC! Works
We partner with bodegas, supermarkets, and ethnic markets across NYC (The South Bronx, East and Central Harlem, and Central Brooklyn) to improve what’s available in stores and how it’s promoted.
We do this by:
- Identifying neighborhoods with limited healthy food options using mapping and assessments
- Working directly with store owners to increase healthier food options
- Providing marketing materials to promote healthier items
- Reducing the impact of unhealthy advertising, like sugary drink promotions
- Identifying methods to increase access to food assistance programs like SNAP and WIC
- Educating customers and residents about healthier food choices through interactive activities
Shop Healthy supports city and state policies that address cost and availability barriers.
For more information, email shophealthy@health.nyc.gov
Additional Resources
- Epi Data Brief: The Food Retail Environment in the South Bronx, 2019 to 2025 (PDF, April 2026)
- NYC Food Standards (PDF)
- Mayor's Office of Food Policy: NYC Food by the Numbers (PDF)
- New York City Food Standards: 2023 Compliance Report (PDF)
- Mayor's Office of Food Policy: NYC Food Metrics Report 2022 (PDF)
- Mayor's Office of Food Policy: Food Forward NYC: 2-Year Progress Report, 2023 (PDF)
- Mayor's Office of Food Policy: Food Forward NYC: A 10-year Food Policy Plan (PDF)