We'll be taking notes here- https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Q3UnLaeb8XqbXKUkQ2v8fZtAYVkDNLi2BvZhb0xALM/edit

Hello, I am new to this work. I am with the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust in Fayetteville AR. I run NWA Farm Link which is part of a broader regional food system initiative. Just wanted to introduce myself. FYI. Appreciate learning from you all.

Sounds good! More like the old commodity foods.

Karla-TN

What is the role (if any) of digital tools in helping you coordinate (either among food hubs, or distributions with logistics, routing and pivoting to handle increase in demand etc.)?

I hear there is hiring going on… how can, can out of work restaurant and hotel workers apply for these jobs?

Am I correct that the funding for procuring locally sourced food for emergency boxes is coming from private funders?

Yes, if you could send the spreadsheet please for CSAs! We don’t mind clunky

For us the funding is coming primarily through contracts with city government agencies.

Tom, would love to share your worksheet with the CSA-Innovation Network. https://www.csainnovationnetwork.org/

I’d love to have access to the spreadsheet, Tom!

For sure - ping me at tom@4pfoods.com

I'm really new to Food Hubs and operations. Are food hubs working directly with grocery stores to help them supply more food to communities?

We have started doing home deliveries. Any apps or tools that work for mapping delivery routes?

I second Ankita Raturi’s question:

What is the role (if any) of digital tools in helping you coordinate (either among food hubs, or distributions with logistics, routing and pivoting to handle increase in demand etc.)?

routific.com is what we use

GrowNYC has created a database for our Greenmarket farmers to list alternative sales channels that they offer: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MOWl8Cg4xyCvAmR06cFhJ9obYR5ToZD_XhSEcgekjzY/edit?ts=5e8369f1#gid=1829695724

Is anyone partnering with organizations that were already serving food insecure communities to increase their capabilities in serving as largest swaths of the population become food insecure?

Onfleet.com is another useful logistics resource

The Food Conservancy Northwest Arkansas is purchasing all produce small farms in NWA do not have a market for. We do not want any small farms to throw any produce away, stop planting, or stop growing.

GrowFood Carolina in South Carolina has seen an increase in Whole Foods sales, not a large increase, but an increase!

GrowNYC is also currently on-boarding our Greenmarket farmers to FellowFarmer.com to offer online pre-orders for at-market pickup at our NYC farmers markets.

Food pantries that are connected to local food growing organizations are doing well. However dairy farmers are dumping milk. Food Hub Adopt a dairy cow to connect consumer to farmers who lost income.

I helped one of the farms in our area with a bit of route mapping and found this software to be useful: https://www.routexl.com/. I didn’t dig into it super deeply, and ended up refining the route manually in GoogleMaps, but the software was useful in getting me started organizing a whole slew of addresses - up to 20 at a time which is more than could be entered into GoogleMaps.

I'm with The Farm Bridge in Kingston, NY, and we're a processor -- we've been seeing a major increase in work on retail products for food hubs and with other food producers. We are quickly putting together an outreach effort to get the word out that we can help with re-packing foodservice format products into retail (sauce, IQF bulk cases, more) so that the product can be re-worked and sold. We are also able to pack a large variety of items, such as beans for Headwater Foood Hub, and we've pivoted from foodservice sized NY sourced tomato sauce to retail jars

Our WFM stores also said NO, they need to focus on pulling from their warehouses

Can the chat be shared after the meeting please?

Road Warrior app is best for mapping and scheduling in my experience - well worth the $10/month

Is anyone seeking funding from philanthropic foundations to increase local foods purchasing and getting that food to people, particularly in the gig economy?

I used to route the school buses we owned and Road Warrior beats anything I have used

understanding there are huge unknowns, of the changes you all have made, which would you like to keep as part of core programming moving forward. which are helping farmers most and how can we keep those going?

Just as a consumer, I've seen MUCH better choice and range of inventory at independent/specialty stores (e.g., My Organic Market and Grosvenor Market in my part of MD compared to say, Giant and Safeway). My suspicion was that this was related to the diversity of distribution networks they used and their comparative flexibility in procurement.

We'll include notes from the chat in notes shared after the call.

Seventy percent of our sales were to restaurants and we've pivoted to 100% to retail and home delivery. However we were holding a lot of inventory packed for institutions so we started a community fund to raise money to be able to donate meat to the Food Bank. We're half way toward our goal with lots of local folks donating and its been a good cash flow strategy since we have a looming A/R problem.

Number 1 change is more collaboration with partner hubs. Cleveland Food hub started a CSA and we started retail bags and we are sharing products back and forth.

I think closing of food processors will potentially increase pricing for certain segments of the food market.

I second Sara’s question! How do these changes to your hubs play out going forward?

Are these food hub presenters produce centric?

please share chat

Who is (or is interested in) working on reducing food waste as we adapt? (Let’s talk)

Agree with Tom. Love the hub to hub relationships that are growing!

one suggestion is to take it as a 90 day plan, what needs day to day, what needs done in bi weekly and what is plan for next 90 days and this might not be the same as your overall business strategy. How to plan for future what you add now into your business.

I am new to food hubs, Ohio hubs? Any info?

What are municipal policies that could support these models?

Agree with Brian - will this chat be able to be shared?

Local food is food security … we need that message to be clear

can you all talk about how you lined up those emergency food assistance programs with city agencies?

Yes but where is that funding come from?

That is a great answer.

Thank you.

Cullen and Brian-- definitely will share the chat alongside the recording. Lots of great info in here!!

What Shelley Oswald said!

John - as far as I know - still very little direction on the $9.5 billion for Ag - NSAC is doing a lot of work, but any updates there?

Please help scale regulations for small food vs large distributors and processors - centralized food is broken

I love the networking of these conversations. I am in Clarksville/Nashville and we need to get food hubs going

@ Ursula King- we were founded to extend benefit, in balance, to consumers and producers.

I posted this question on the FSLN listserv, but would love to hear any success stories for selling MORE local food to schools, even though they’re closed right now. Reach out to me if you want to talk about this! I’m concerned about setbacks in institutional purchasing of local foods in the coming years.

funding is a great need at all scales, especially the micro/small scale producers and connecting with food insecure. sources...list thereof would be great.

Recognition and promotion of the value of local food - the true value is regional food security, food sovereignty and national securiy

Hello! National Farm to School Network has been gathering school food resources and success stories on our covid-response page and in our blog. www.farmtoschool.org

RE: donations to food pantries. In our home delivery cart, farmers asked us to add a "donation" product so people could do a quick add-on to their order. Farmer then delivers product to the food pantry.

I’m working on earmarking County-level CARES Act funding (not through the PPP or the $9.5b someone mentioned), but the local government funds to be tagged for grants AND loans “essential businesses” which here in TX include farmers, food processors, and food distributors. Austin will get roughly $170m and Travis County (in which it sits) will get $50m+.

John, echo Sara's comment on what Wallace can do. I think on emergency funding from municipal sources, perhaps something in partnership with National League of Cities, NARC, etc. or other might be illuminating. Happy to be one of the folks to think through this if helpful.

Hi - I am a semi-finalist for the Food System Vision Prize for my vision of how faith communities could be involved with regionalizing the food system along the East Coast, if anyone would like to collaborate. https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/food-system-vision-prize/refinement/faith-institutions-leading-the-way-towards-healthy-sustainable-food-systems

keep in mind that it is still open season for the FMPP and LFPP grants as well out of USDA/AMS which can be used to support the formation of new farm networks. There is a also a new grant program to support regional public/private partnerships

The Food Conservancy NWA is also partnering with all the area farmers market and helping support them with offering refrigerated space, trucking, etc.

that seems like the area we need to focus on for the USDA $$ under CARES - using that money to "fill the delta" as Tom put it between real cost of food and emergency food assistance - to connect local/regional farmers with food access/DTC boxes

Does anyone know a grant to apply for that covers operating costs for non-profits providing agricultural community programming and support? Our budget from the state is in danger.

THANK YOU, Ursula!

UNH Extension has developed a Food Access map for food pantry https://extension.unh.edu/resource/new-hampshire-food-access-map

Id love to be a part of conversations working to create more local food distribution to retail markets, DTC, and F2I

Another currently open funding opportunity is the Native American Agriculture Fund grants- these resources are specific advancing food sovereignty to tribal and native communities.

Been working on a list of funding resources for small biz and nonprofits, with an emphasis on food, hospitality and ag, especially in the Philly area

See here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wB-C9efSkBFjYoPqnB4VActAxtgZ4-ClXsMVLK0b8nk/edit?usp=sharing_eil&ts=5e922153

would people be interested in sharing contact info so people who are local to one another can connect?

How to best connect with emergency management/emergency services and receive fair price for product? Seeing stories of milk dumps and unharvested fields because it's cheaper than harvesting and donating. How to shift to emergency or local markets from instituational, and quickly?

Karla Kean, TSU Extension kkean@utk.edu

devonab@ncat.org

We have had some success working with food banks to get food into the school systems. the food banks have been able to get donors to pay for local food for this in some cases.

haile@thecommonmarket.org

ShaundaF@growfoodcarolina.com

OldTimeFlavor@gmail.com www.OldTime.Farm

jillian.dy@foodcorps.org

foodhub@nesfp.org (boston) New Entry

Please add me to the list for future meetings rae@rhicenter.org

margo@thecommonmarket.org

zaida@feedingflorida.org

ehassert@grownyc.org

Caitlin@thecommonmarket.org

itslaurenturk@gmail.com

thanks!

jnnorton@purdue.edu

ankita@purdue.edu

mary@sevengenerationsahead.org

wright.1128@osu.edu

bstiffarm@opportunitylinkmt.org

brittany@wmgcoop.com

Can people maybe put their region next to their email?

I am Western PA - near Pittsburgh