We continue to reflect on ten years of Food Connects and our Food Hub's growth. This blog explores how Food Connect’s Food Hub has expanded from 2019 until today. You can read Part I of our Food Hub history here.

In 2019, we celebrated a milestone with the opening of a new 1,000-square-foot cooler and freezer at our Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) Business Park location. We hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony where over 50 staff, board members, funders, partners, customers, producers, and family members joined us to mark the occasion.

When Food Connects moved its office into the BDCC’s Business Park in 2017, we knew the space had the potential to help us grow. So for the 2019 expansion, the BDCC helped us identify a space adjacent to our offices. The two organizations had worked together for several years to support workforce development in food systems. Adam Grinold, Executive Director of the BDCC, remarked at the time, "At the BDCC, we are always on the lookout for folks and businesses with a growth mindset. Food Connects is more than just a food distribution company; they are food systems leaders."

With funding from the High Meadows Fund and many individuals and businesses, we raised $200,000 to make the dream of an expanded Food Hub a reality. The new cooler and freezer allowed us to offer wholesale customers, including schools, hospitals, and independent grocers, more options for using local products instead of commodity foods. This increase in capacity also allowed us to build market channels for more producers and consumers in southern Vermont and New Hampshire, the Upper Valley, and western Massachusetts.

And that expansion came just in time! The COVID-19 pandemic stressed our food system and brought about an environment of urgent, unprecedented demand for regional foods. With empty store shelves, people flocked to farm stands for food! As a result, farmers bought regional products from us to fill their shelves to meet their customers' demands. Fortunately, our warehouse was equipped to have various products from the region to provide a quality shopping experience. The farm stand trend continues, and we are proud to support farmers' efforts to add retail to their revenue streams. The expanded Food Connects Food Hub made it easy for them to buy a variety of products and feed people in their communities. We leveraged longstanding ties with community producers and wholesale customers to seize the opportunity to meet that demand as we responded to the community’s need for fresh, regional foods. With a small and committed staff, our Food Hub adapted quickly to respond to the ever-increasing demand.

Along with our new expanded cooler and freezer storage space, we added a fourth refrigerated delivery vehicle, hired six new employees, upgraded our inventory and sales software, and began planning warehouse space usage for increased optimization. Designated essential workers, our Food Hub team did not miss a single week of deliveries. Our drivers were on the road and our workers were in the warehouse every day during a global time of fear and uncertainty, motivated by the desire to serve their communities.

Our food sales doubled in 2020, enabling us to purchase more from our local and regional farms and producers. In 2022, the Food Hub purchased $1,856,450 from farms and food producers in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.

And, in 2022, the Food Connects Food Hub announced a $1,000,000 expansion project! We are adding another 10,000 square feet of food storage space in the BDCC’s Business Park to accommodate our continued growth and better serve our customers and partners. In 2023, we secured $500,000 from former Senator Leahy’s Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) funds and raised an additional $200,000 from state and foundational grants. For the remainder of 2023, we will focus on individual and corporate gifts to raise the $300,000 left of our funding goal for the project. We are grateful for the support of our community as we work towards our mission of connecting farms, schools, and communities through food.

If you would like to make a donation to the Food Connects Capital Campaign Expansion Project to Create a Regional Food System, please contact Lissa Harris, Development Director, at lissa@foodconnects.org or click the link below.