NGFN Food Hub Collaboration
The NGFN Food Hub Collaboration is a partnership between Wallace Center at Winrock International, USDA, National Good Food Network, and others. The Collaboration is working to ensure the success of existing and emerging food hubs in the US by building capacity through connection, outreach, research, technical assistance and partnerships. By supporting this crucial player in the value chain we aim to accelerate the growth of regional food systems that make healthy and affordable food available to all communities while creating viable markets of scale for regionally focused producers.
What is a food hub?
The working definition of a regional food hub is a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers for the purpose of strengthening producer capacity and access to wholesale, retail, and institutional markets. Food hubs have positive economic, social and environmental impacts in their communities, and fill a critical gap in regional food systems.
Read the project overview.
Our Plan
Our food hub support plan assists existing food hubs and those currently in development, while simultaneously advancing regional food value chains.
1) Create a community of practice of food hub managers enabling information sharing, peer to peer learning, and fertile ground for cooperation.
2) Provide a rich technical assistance network for food hubs, with expertise in all areas of business planning and operations.
3) Coordinate food hub “pilots” as a form of applied research on key leverage points of food hub success.
4) Leverage our communications network to ensure that our learning gets circulated to a wide audience, accelerating innovation.
Current Webinars
Join us for free food hub related webinars at http://ngfn.org/webinars.
Archived Food Hub Webinars
Listen to archived food hub related webinars at http://ngfn.org/webinars or click on the links below.
- Harvesting Investment Dollars from the 99%: Cutting Edge Ways to Fund Your Food Business
- The Price Point Conundrum - How the Sustainable Farmer Can Afford Her Own Tomato
- It’s Viable ... Now What? From Feasibility Study to Business Plan
- Financing Food Hubs: Dozens of Ideas to Access Capital
- Clearing the Roadblocks: Market Based Strategies for Getting Good Food to all Communities
- Food Hubs: Viable Regional Distribution Solutions
- Leveraging Existing Infrastructure for Significant Food System Change: Food Hubs, Regional Distribution, Farm to School, and More
- The Business of Food Hubs: Planning Successful Regional Produce Aggregation Facilities
- Community Food Enterprise
- Innovations in Value Chain Infrastructure - Red Tomato
- Aggregation/Distribution: Appalachian Sustainable Development
Visit our Information Hubs
How many food hubs are in the U.S., and where are they? What does the research say about food hubs? Where can I get help developing or expanding my hub? The Wallace Center and the USDA both host extensive websites with the latest research, resources and information about the growing field of food hubs:
Let’s Connect!
Ask us questions, share resources, a success story, or an idea for a webinar - we'd love to hear from you.
contact@foodhub.info
Are You a Food Hub?
We are compiling data on food hubs around the country. If you represent a food hub that is not on our list, please let us know. Complete this very short form to tell us about your great work.