Who We Are
Morrissey Market offers solutions to scale Food is Medicine intervention programs that address chronic food-related diseases affecting many Americans. The organization draws on over a century of collective experience in delivering fresh, healthy food nationwide through its infrastructure, food data, and logistics. Its core services include custom produce prescription plans and medically tailored grocery boxes, covering sourcing, storing, packaging, and direct delivery. The company's "clinical food box" model emphasizes high-quality, nutrient-dense fresh produce, setting it apart from conventional grocery or food bank offerings that often include more processed goods.
Morrissey Market partners with health plans, government programs, and digital health companies on both pilot studies and large-scale initiatives. They also provide food relief through partnerships with non-profit organizations. Key collaborators include Community Servings for the Massachusetts 1115 waiver program, NourishedRx, Maine Health, and local growers like Growing Places in Massachusetts.
How We Think of Food is Medicine
Medically tailored food programs are interventions that provide food specifically designed to meet the dietary needs of individuals with chronic diseases related to nutrition. The primary goal is to improve patient health outcomes by addressing the role of diet in managing these conditions. This can involve providing tailored grocery boxes or meals with specific nutritional content.
How We Put Food is Medicine Into Action
Implementing Food is Medicine programs involves complexities in sourcing, storing, packaging, and delivering custom food items such as produce prescriptions and medically tailored grocery boxes. Organizations like Morrissey Market address these challenges by providing infrastructure, food data, logistics, and partnerships with regional food distribution hubs to achieve national coverage. They emphasize efficient supply chains and traceability to ensure quality and food safety. Our client determines who is eligible (via referrals), the duration, and the type of service provided.
How We’re Funded and How the Future Looks
As a service provider in this space, Morrissey Market is paid directly for each clinical food box delivered to a patient. Our clients are funded by 1115 state waiver Medicaid programs, Medicare Advantage, and private funding. We are cautiously optimistic that the MAHA box support will ultimately extend to support Medicaid food intervention programs in the long term.
Which Metrics and Outcomes We Track
Our clients are responsible for tracking specific health outcomes and cost savings. Morrissey Market focuses on traceability, deliverability, utilization, and customer satisfaction.
Lessons Learned
- Food logistics are very complicated. Not every nonprofit is equipped to understand the nuances of the cold chain, nor should they. Morrissey Market is designed to help multiple partners execute their food intervention plans through our white-label service.
- There is no one right way to implement a FIM program. Each community has different needs, and there needs to be multiple food providers—that is, not only retail grocers--to support various initiatives.
- FIM cannot do everything. It cannot be responsible for all challenges surrounding health equity. It is one set of interventions that provide cost savings to the healthcare industry while improving health outcomes. It cannot be the only food source for low-income citizens.
Why We Want to Keep Providing Food is Medicine
We love the work we are doing at Morrissey Market, and continue to get excited about the various programs being created in this space. Currently, we are seeing our sourcing matrix expand to include more locally grown produce. We think that’s a big win, especially for farmers who recently lost out on USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance grant programs.
When the work becomes challenging, we remind ourselves that we are delivering fresh, healthy groceries directly to someone’s door. It can be in an urban housing complex or in a rural zone in the middle of the country. We are improving access to these food intervention programs one person at a time.