During our last episode, we introduced Double Up Heartland, a coalition of six partner organizations implementing Double Up Food Bucks, a nutrition incentive program at grocery stores, farmers markets, farm stands and mobile markets in Kansas and Missouri. They've put together a diversity, equity and inclusion - or DEI - committee. And we've been talking with three individuals from that committee who represent one third of the coalition's member organizations.

As we'll hear more about in this episode, the process revealed differences between their organizations that had never come out before in five years of collaborating. On top of organizational differences, there are limitations of working within what is expected of them as they make Double Up Food Bucks run in their communities and different understandings of how engaging in DEI work directly relates to food security.

REAL Talks is a podcast created by the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems. The series is hosted by Kolia Souza and Andrea Weiss, and produced by Lindsay Mensch and Andrea Weiss. The podcast is supported by the Nutrition Incentive Program Training, Technical Assistance, Evaluation, and Information Center, and Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, grant number 20197003030415, project accession number 1020863 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.