“Farmers are busy people,” according to a new guide for food hub operators, which provides tips on how to engage producers and ensure the food hubs that add value to their products are resilient and sustainable.
“This is not simply a step-by-step linear planning guide,” says Sarah-Patricia Breen, BC Regional Innovation Chair in Rural Economic Development at Selkirk College, co-author of the 65-page guide, Beyond the Business Plan: Building Food Hubs for Resilient Local Food Systems: From Idea to Day-to-Day Operations. “It offers practical insights for planning, implementing, evaluating and sustaining a food hub, and information that addresses each hub’s unique challenges, particularly balancing financial sustainability with social and environmental objectives.”
Supporting value-added production is one of nine models for food hub development the guide identifies.
“This may be most effective when hubs offer co-packing or contract processing services, producing to specification on behalf of farmers rather than expecting each producer to do their own value-added processing,” it notes.
Other options include serving as points of sale or pickup for goods ordered direct from producers or through subscription programs.
The guide notes that food hubs should aim to offer services to farmers and food producers at fair rates but not rely exclusively on services to producers for revenue.
“Diversifying revenue streams, through public-facing programs, partnerships, and consulting, helps balance the hub’s social mission with long-term financial stability,” the guide notes.
Ultimately a sustainable food hub hinges on trust-based relationships with farmers.
“Taking the time to understand their realities, capacities and challenges helps ensure long-term collaboration and a resilient local food system,” the guide says.
This includes realizing that farms are both business ventures and very often passion projects, and that producers’ workflows may require a hub’s services on a seasonal basis. This doesn’t mean farmers aren’t interested, and points to the need for a diversified client base.
The guide debuted at the Basin Business Summit and Food Expo in Nelson, November 6-8, which attracted approximately 500 people.
The guide’s recommendations reflected engagement with up to 66 food hub operators and proponents, food hub staff and users, interviews at industry events and a literature review.
The BC Food Hub Network includes 13 hubs developed with provincial funding. The province recently outsourced network management to industry group BC Food and Beverage.
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