Small, food-related businesses in Phoenix may be eligible to share in $800,000 provided by the American Rescue Plan Act.

Applications are open for the Food Systems Transformation Grant, which is part of the Phoenix Resilient Food System Initiative.

The Office of Environmental Programs has the money available in grant funding to distribute to small businesses located within Phoenix city limits.

Eligible small businesses include those who are a part of the city's food system and play a role in the consumption, distribution, growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing or the disposal of food and food-related items, according to the  city.

“Grants must be used to create a more resilient, sustainable, equitable, healthy and thriving system,” city officials said in a release.

Examples of projects that help transform the local food system include but are not limited to:

• Advancing justice, equity and fairness within the local food system.
• Promoting efforts to reduce the impact of the local food system on the changing climate (mitigation).
• Strengthening the resiliency of the local food system in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, various shocks and disruptions (adaptation).
• Enhancing food security, accessibility, affordability and healthy eating.
• Adopting new and/or expanding existing sustainable and innovative urban food production, distribution, aggregation, processing and recycling practices.
• Developing product prototypes.
• Creating new, high-quality jobs to implement grant-funded projects.
• Improving local market options.
  
  

Small businesses are eligible to receive between $5,000 and $99,000 in grants and must use the money to complete all proposed projects within 12 months.

Grant applications are due no later than Friday, March 31. Apply here.