To say that summers are busy in the Food Hub is an understatement. With fresh produce at its peak and new items coming in every day our “just in time” delivery services are in high gear—constantly adapting to what’s in demand, what’s available, and what the weather has decided to bless us with an overabundance of. All that said, this year’s summer at Food Connects has been even busier than what we’ve come to expect!
We have lots to highlight from this summer but our biggest news is that summer sales hit over $465,000! For comparison, this represents a 67% increase over the summer of 2020. And just two years ago, in 2019, we sold $562,000 worth of food the entire year.
Month number / This year sales / Last year sales / Change year-over-year (e.g. 0.67 = 67% increase).
Over the past few months, we’ve significantly expanded our delivery and sourcing routes. We extended a route to southeastern New Hampshire to access food hubs like Three River Farmers Alliance and Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success, as well as key customers like Sweet Beet Market, and Warner Public Market.
This new route connects us with our New Hampshire Food Hub Network partners and presents us with lots of exciting potential to expand our sourcing reach into New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts, and to export more products to greater New England.
We expanded to the north as well with new routes up Interstate 89 towards the Montpelier/Burlington area. These new partnerships strengthen New England food resiliency and take us one step closer to the 50 by 60 New England Food Vision.
And how do we get there? With new vehicles of course! In August, after an extremely long, COVID-fueled auto parts delay, we finally received a brand new 20-foot Hino diesel-electric hybrid box truck. The truck is outfitted with dual temperature zones so that we can run refrigerated, frozen, or both at the same time. The truck is now our most advanced, versatile vehicle, and is an emblem of our ongoing efforts to improve the sustainability of our distribution operation. It will give us the flexibility to access new markets and new products—all while increasing fuel efficiency!
Lastly, we are so excited that the Vermont Way Foods (VWF) team hired Matt Landi to drive market growth in support of VWF’s mission to grow and distribute food the Vermont Way, catalyzing a more sustainable and equitable food system for all Vermont farmers and food makers.