Greater Falls Food Hub

Greater Falls Food Hub

Summary

Funds will be used by Southeastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) to determine the feasibility of and develop a sustainable implementation plan for the Great Falls Food Hub (GFFH) Project. The Food Hub concept is a combination of infrastructure and programming that would provide business incubator services and processing facilities for small and emerging food-based businesses within the Great Falls region including parts of Windham & Windsor counties in Vermont and Sullivan & Cheshire counties in New Hampshire.

Objectives/Performance Targets

1) Hire a project coordinator. A part-time (24 hours/week) project coordinator was hired in August, 2010.
2) Conduct a feasibility study. A Request for Qualifications for a feasibility consultant was issued in September, responses were received in October and a consultant, Development Cycles was selected in November, 2010. The feasibility study is beginning and will be completed by June 1, 2011.
3) Develop program structure, including: organizing the team of volunteers, creating the Food Hub model, finalizing the business plan, researching potential facility locations, identifying an anchor tenant and researching marketing opportunities. While we don’t have specific infrastructure plans such as a commercial kitchen, warehouse storage or retail outlets developed or in place, the groundwork for the establishment of the regional food hub has been moved far along. Many of the organizational, administrative, marketing and public relations efforts have been put in place for a successful outcome. The infrastructure committee has compiled a list of potential sites in the region and has evaluated six of them as potential sites for a commercial kitchen and warehouse storage.
4) Coordinate with nutrition and healthy lifestyle programs. One of our partners, Post Oil Solutions, has continued outreach efforts with over 700 participants gaining skills in food production and preservation at 45 workshops held around Windham County (see www.postoilsolutions.org). The GFFH board recognizes the need to continue the focus on this effort in the coming year.
5) Establish partnerships. The GFFH concept continues to receive support and encouragement from a wide range of organizations and individuals in the region including the Vermont Food Bank, USDA Rural Development, Westminster Meats (a local slaughter house), the Bellows Fall VT Economic Development Director, the Cheshire County Conservation District, The Cheshire County NH administrator, Post Oil Solutions, and the University of Vermont Extension Office. These organizations will be consulted with during the development of the feasibility study.
6) Identify resources, and develop subsidies to realize the Food Hub’s goal to provide healthy locally grown foods affordably to families of all incomes. SEVCA and GFFH identified federal grant programs and other potential funders to support innovative agricultural and food system projects, and applied for funding for further development and implementation of the project. Successful grant applications were made to the Federal government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA – $10,000), to the Fanny Holt Ames and Edna Louise Holt Fund (Holt – $15,000) and to the USDA’s Rural Business Enterprise Grants (RBEG – $25,000). These funds have been used to hire consultants, pay a project coordinator and continue the ongoing work of creating the Great Falls Food Hub.
7) Create a comprehensive long-term sustainability plan. This objective will be addressed over the next six months.

Accomplishments/Milestones

The greatest challenges to establishing the GFFH have been: the time required to raise funds for the identified mission and scope of work; the complexity of regional food systems with their inherent variety of individuals and organizations playing different roles in production, distribution, marketing and consumption; and the nature of volunteer board decision-making during the creation of a new organization. SEVCA and GFFH identified a number of funding sources in addition to the SARE grant to continue organizational development. However, these funds were not awarded and in hand until June of 2010. With additional funds it became feasible to proceed with hiring a part-time project coordinator for a full year of work. It also made sufficient funds available to retain the services of an economic consultant to complete a feasibility study. In addition there has been some turnover of board members as the GFFH mission has evolved and focused.

Essentially, the timeline for hiring staff and consultants and establishing GFFH infrastructure has been drawn out and extended. At the same time, we have identified the need to continue our work with identified partners and improve our outreach efforts to draw in new members and to get public buy in for future GFFH efforts. The following is a list of our accomplishments in the past year.
• A Food Hub Project Coordinator with a significant background and breadth of knowledge in agricultural systems, and project management and development was obtained after a three-month hiring process and began working part-time (24 hours per week) in August, 2010.
• The Project Coordinator developed a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to obtain the services of an economic and business consultant to conduct a feasibility study for the food hub. The RFQ was distributed widely and resulted in submittals from four consultants. The consultants were then ranked and interviewed resulting in the selection of Development Cycles, a business with experience in New England economic development and analysis of Vermont regional food systems.
• SEVCA and the Project Coordinator continued to work with an Interim Working Group of volunteers to create the Food Hub model. Activities included developing marketing materials, website development, identifying and analyzing potential facility locations, and organizing regional outreach activities.
• The GFFH obtained the services of a national expert on local and regional farm and food system analysis, Ken Meter of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minnesota, to conduct an assessment of the four-county GFFH region. Mr. Meter developed a report, “Great Falls Region Farm and Food Economy”, that described and detailed economic data about the farms, agricultural products, types and costs of farm inputs and food consumption in the region as well as related health statistics. Presentations of the report were made in New Hampshire and Vermont to provide the big picture of “food in farm country”, to publicize the work of the GFFH and to attract new members and collaborative partners. The presentations were attended by approximately fifty people in New Hampshire and thirty people in Vermont.
• A 17-page report entitled “Great Falls Region Farm and Food Economy” was completed by Ken Meter and has been distributed to at least a dozen organizations in the four-county region.
• A Website was developed for the GFFH and can be viewed at www.greatfallsfoodhub.com
• A variety of marketing materials were developed including business cards, displays, and 2,000 copies of a tri-fold brochure that can be handed out at public meetings of the GFFH.
• Through meetings with partners we have identified potential incubator farm sites in three of the four counties of the GFFH region.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The GFFH continues to collaborate with a wide range of partners including Post Oil Solutions, SEVCA, the Cheshire County, NH Conservation District, the Vermont Food Bank, Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, the Hannah Grimes Foundation in Keene, NH, Local Workforce Investment Boards, a local food shelf, and the USDA Rural Development office. Some tangible experiences of these partnerships include:
• A collaboration with the Cheshire County Conservation District to reuse a county jail/farm site for food hub related activities such as an incubator farm operation.
• Invitations from the Hannah Grimes Foundation to sit in on their Farm Business Service Provider Meetings.
• An expression of interest from the Vermont Food Bank to consider the potential of acting as an anchor tenant in any identified facilities.
• Calls from farm operators interested in working with the food hub to meet and discuss potential value-added products.
• Meetings with the USDA Rural Development Office and a local slaughterhouse to explore ways to improve the way local farm producers supply the operation.

Based on our experience in the past year, the effort to get the GFFH established is aligned with several broad societal changes. It seems to be an idea whose time has come. The producers, distributors and consumers of local food and farming are collaborating on local food efforts in new ways every day. Almost every organization that we have dealt with is rooting for our success and wants to collaborate in some way. Local, state and federal government agencies are including local food as part of their mission. Finally, there seems to be a change in the thinking of economic development entities that are starting to see agricultural and food infrastructure development as part of their mission and a chance for positive regional economic development. We are in a position to take advantage of these developments.

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