DURHAM, N.C.–Pairwise, a health-focused food and agriculture company, and Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), the nation’s leading nonprofit working to improve the food system, today announced a three-year partnership to support a joint goal of increasing access to healthy, fresh, and affordable food.
For one in six Americans, healthy, fresh food is either too expensive, too far away, or both, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Pairwise is working to change that, through both its support of PHA and its overarching mission to drive change within America’s food system by leveraging CRISPR and other technology to bring tastier, more nutritious, or more convenient produce to market. Pairwise’s first food product, Conscious™ Greens, will launch later this year in both the foodservice and retail channels.
“We are pleased to partner with PHA, whose impactful work aligns so closely with the Pairwise vision of reducing barriers to fruit and vegetable consumption,” said Tom Adams, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Pairwise. “The challenge of ensuring access to healthy food is multifaceted and complex. At Pairwise, we are using technology to reduce barriers to healthy food access. But it is also imperative that we work with other organizations that are tackling key social barriers. PHA is leading the way in innovative solutions to ensuring food equity.”
Pairwise will contribute $75,000 annually to PHA’s Good Food for All program, which provides produce to families facing barriers to accessing affordable, healthy, and sustainable food. The program works with local partners to empower long-term changes in healthy eating behaviors in communities across the country.
Pairwise’s contribution will provide 630,000 servings of healthy fruits and vegetables through the PHA’s Good Food for All program and will support PHA’s commitment made at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to deliver 100 million servings of produce by 2025.
“Every day, too many families around the country struggle to access healthy food. This entrenched problem must be addressed so that good food is available to everyone, no matter their zip code. We are taking the steps to solve it by working with Pairwise to make healthy food accessible for families in-need,” said Noreen Springstead, President & CEO of Partnership for a Healthier America.
PHA and Pairwise’s shared goal of creating greater, sustained access to nutritious food will require innovative thinking and new solutions. Both organizations are focused on finding innovative solutions to persistent problems facing our current food system.
Pairwise is a leading food and tech company committed to building a healthier world through better fruits and vegetables. The company is based in Durham, N.C., with operations in Arizona and California, all locations where Pairwise expects to deepen its relationship with local PHA partners.
“We look at this partnership as the very beginning of what we hope to be a long-term relationship with PHA,” Adams said. “Our shared vision of ensuring healthy food access to all steers our work each day at Pairwise. As we launch our first products this year and mature as a company, we look forward to continuing to grow our meaningful work with PHA.”
Partnership for a Healthier America launched in 2010 and collaborates with companies across the supply chain to increase access to and affordability of vegetables and fruits and to improve the nutritional quality of food and beverages, resulting in more and healthier options for families.
About Pairwise
Pairwise brings together leaders in agriculture, technology, and consumer foods to harness the transformative potential of new genomics technologies to create innovative new products. Pairwise is working to develop new varieties of crops and partner with organizations that seek to drive innovation across the plant-based economy. In addition to leafy greens, Pairwise is currently developing new types of berries, cherries and other produce under its Conscious™ Foods brand. In under five years, the company has grown to over 150 employees, with significant growth to continue in 2023 as the company enters the food service and retail channels.
Pairwise was founded by Chief Executive Officer Tom Adams and Chief Business Officer Haven Baker, with scientific co-founders J. Keith Joung, Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School; David Liu, Director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare and Vice-Chair of the Faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; and Feng Zhang, a McGovern Investigator and professorat MIT. For more information, visit https://www.pairwise.com and ConsciousFoods.net.
About Partnership for a Healthier America
Partnership for a Healthier America is the premier national nonprofit organization working to create lasting, systemic changes that transform the food landscape in pursuit of health equity. PHA develops evidence-based approaches that are implemented in partnership with the private sector, nonprofits, and government, leveraging PHA’s assets and the partner’s knowledge to accelerate the pace of transformation. Learn more at www.ahealthieramerica.org.
