Capital in context: Funding US Inland Northwest food hub development before and during COVID-19

This study focuses on how 10 food hubs in the U.S. Inland Northwest resourced their start-up and development before and during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Case studies include coop­erative, government agency, nonprofit, and family-owned food hubs. Because of the prominence of nonmonetary values as drivers in food hub devel­opment, we used a social entrepreneurship frame­work to understand how people, context, and a social value proposition affected access to and use of capital resources. We found that each food hub had a unique mix of capital sources and profita­bility that reflected and shaped who was involved, their mission, and their available resources. All operating food hubs that we studied strengthened and grew their business during the first year of the pandemic. Two federal COVID-19-related pro­grams—the Paycheck Protection Program and the Farmers to Families Food Box Program—played brief but instrumental roles in helping most organi­zations early in the pandemic, enabling several to pivot from heavily impacted markets (such as restaurants and educational institutions) to direct-to-consumer markets and food security efforts. For several, panic buying early in the crisis followed by a consistent large increase in demand fueled organi­zational growth. The food hubs adapted quickly, with some significantly changing their business model and expected trajectory as they weathered the first year of the pandemic, coming out stronger than before.

Re-Imagining Localism and Food Justice: Co-Op Cincy and the Union Cooperative Movement

Co-op Cincy is an incubator of worker- and community-owned cooperatives, including the farm and food hub Our Harvest. The incubator is part of the innovative 1worker1vote.org network of unionized worker cooperatives stemming from a partnership between the Spanish Mondragon Cooperatives and the United States Steelworkers. This Community Case Study examines Co-Op Cincy’s food sector organizing as an example of resistance to the industrial, corporate food system. Their hybrid and experimental approach creatively re-imagines both cooperative ownership and localist food systems. Whereas some local efforts fail to address questions of social justice or drift from social justice missions, this essay describes how Co-Op Cincy and Our Harvest 1) define their social justice goals in pursuit of locally rooted ownership, 2) raise consciousness about the connections among food systems and racial and class disparities as well as the need for sustainability, solidarity, and democratic ownership, and 3) embody these commitments in everyday organizing. Their experimentation lends insights into potential paths to create a more equitable food system and a more just economy.

A food nonprofit's response to COVID-19: The Common Market leans on its mission to serve

The Common Market is a nonprofit regional food distributor with a mission to connect communities with good food from sustainable family farms. Outputs of their work include improved food security, farm viability, and community and ecological health. The nonprofit services communities in its three active regions—the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, and Houston, Texas—by delivering healthy farm food to the institutions that serve them: schools, hospitals, eldercare facilities, early childhood education centers, etc. As the COVID-19 pandemic struck the nation, it shut down some of the nonprofit’s con­ventional wholesale outlets and exposed and intensified the issue of food insecurity throughout the country. The food hub prepared to lean on its mission intensely and creatively under these unprece­dented circumstances. Poised to test the limits of a regional food system, The Common Market unveiled the resilient spirits of its team, its partners, and the family farms that make up its network. This essay highlights partnerships that ignited meaningful impact for their farmer partners and helped meet the needs of vulnerable populations amidst the pandemic. . . .

Alternative Agri-Food Networks and Their Role in Re-Localization of Food and Creation of Shared Value: The Case of the Leuven Food Hub

Alternative Agri-Food Networks (AAFNs) are emerging as unconventional models of aggregation, distribution and marketing of food products, as opposed to the prevailing industrialized agri-food system. Within these alternative chains, different types of organizations such as food hubs are promoting a reconnection between producers and consumers as well as a fair distribution of social and economic value throughout the food supply chain. The article analyzes the sourcing and distributing practices of a case study, the Leuven Food Hub in Belgium. The research shows the role of the case study in the re-localization of food and the creation of shared value throughout the supply chain, illustrating the importance of transparency, traceability and trust relations. Moreover, it critically analyzes the transformative potential of this type of model to promote broader schemes of sustainable development. It is argued that these initiatives are proving to be highly resilient, especially in times of crisis, such as the one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is highlighted how food hubs can bring incremental change towards more ecologically and socially responsible food systems. However, we outline the tension between scaling up and remaining alternative, short and local and the challenge this poses to the economic viability of the model. Broadly, given the fact that AAFNs are still a recent phenomenon and therefore a research field under construction, this study aims at contributing to scholars and practitioners with empirical evidence of a functioning alternative agrifood network.

Evaluating food hubs: Reporting on a participatory action project

Food hubs create a range of economic, social, and environmental impacts through a wide variety of activities and programs. Evaluation of these impacts is important; however, many hubs lack the capacity (including time, resources, knowledge, and expertise) to do effective, ongoing evaluation work. This lack of capacity is exacerbated by the difficul¬ties inherent in capturing the kinds of complex, multidimensional, context-specific impacts and outcomes that many of these businesses and organizations strive to achieve. This paper reports on a participatory research project designed to develop a resource to support food hub evaluation efforts. It presents highlights from the guide that was created and discusses associated insights regarding the tensions and opportunities of food hub evaluation. We argue that food hubs need to be engaging in evaluation efforts, even in the face of significant resource constraints, as a means of strengthening individual entities and the sector as a whole. These efforts must be carefully aligned with a hub’s stage of development and context-specific, multifunctional goals. They should also account for food hubs’ emergent, dynamic, and adaptive nature. To that end, participatory evaluation methodologies that take a flexible, collaborative, action-oriented approach are especially relevant.

An Introduction to Shared-Use Commercial Kitchens

Shared-use commercial kitchens are commonly used by food entrepreneurs to launch new food products into market; however, there remain questions about how these facilities work. This new 4-page document defines basic terms used to describe shared-use commercial kitchens, such as incubator, accelerator, or food hub, and gives an overview of potential services or resources available at these facilities. Furthermore, basic information on state level food regulations and an extensive list of Shared-use Commercial Kitchens in Florida is included. Written by Matthew Krug and Sarah Ellis and published by the UF/IFAS Food Science and Human Nutrition Department.https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fs400