NABC Lunch and Learn Q & A
Washington Food Hub Network Collective Impact Report 2024
Responses by Emily Manke, Northwest Agriculture Business Center and
Shannon Bly, Whidbey Island Grown Cooperative
March 14, 2024
Resources:
- About the WA Food Hub Network
- WA Food Hub Network 2024 Collective Impact Analytics Dashboard
- For more info, contact Emily Manke or Shannon Bly .
Q&A
Q: Are there any food banks or food access organizations using the refrigerated food storage facilities on Whidbey Island?
A: (Shannon) – Our storage facilities are open to anyone. We have a food access organization on the south end that has their own farm. I hope to work with them on growing food storage crops in the winter (e.g., potatoes, winter squash), or they could buy in bulk from farmers and store the food at our facility. There is a question about liability and who would manage the food that still needs to be worked out.
Q: Do you think fresh food access for Whidbey Is. food banks has been limited by lack of storage and cooler space?
A: (Shannon) – I think space definitely has been limited. I had a chance to talk with all the food access organizations last year about storing the products that they buy in our storage facilities until their distribution times. For example, in Coupeville, they get all their products in the morning and distribute at the fire station in the afternoon. They don’t distribute a lot of perishable foods because of how they are set up. We said they could store their food in our walk-in cooler down the street so that will increase food access for the people using that food bank.
Q: Is there interest from food hubs to incorporate more frozen seafood products (e.g., rockfish, pink shrimp, salmon, black cod)?
A: (Emily) – Yes! There is definite demand for fish products. OSPI put out a big contract for frozen salmon for the schools. Schools want more seafood to be able to offer more culturally appropriate foods for indigenous students, and to get away from using so much commodity beef and chicken that may not be the healthiest and most sustainable options.
Meat is a little fraught for food hubs that are dealing with fresh vegetables. There is potential for cross-contamination. Meat needs to be shipped in a truck that keeps it frozen. Vegetables need to stay cold but not frozen. Fish can be extra sensitive to temperature. It’s not impossible, but challenging.
SouthWest WA Food Hub would like to offer more seafood. There is great opportunity and a real gap right now. Reach out to me and let’s figure out how to make it work.
A: (Chloe Spainhower) – Puget Sound Food Hub (PSFH) only has one frozen seafood producer (off the top of my head), so I believe there would certainly be interest in more variety of seafood!
A: (Sarah Richard, San Juan Islands Food Hub) – Yes, we currently carry a very small volume of frozen fish and are still sorting out logistics with fresh, frozen, cooked, and establishing sustainability requirements.
A: (Jenna, WA Sea Grant with UW) – I connect fishers with new markets, so this is a great connection. Email:
Q: Are you aware of the Food Hub that is being developed in South Seattle – a part of Food Lifeline’s campus? Just curious. I don’t think they are up and running yet.
A: (Emily) – Yes, My NABC colleague, Maxime, is working with them. There are a few groups exploring food hubs. South Seattle has a real need for more culturally relevant foods and has more BIPOC farmers. I think that is the gap Food Lifeline is looking to fill. As soon as they are up and running and interested, we will happily incorporate them into the Network.
Q: An issue we encountered with farm to school and farm to food bank in trying to source from food hubs is that the prices hubs set for restaurants and grocery stores were too high for school and food access organizations’ small budgets. Have food hubs been able to tailor Local Food Marketplace (LFM) software to be able to offer different price scales for schools and food banks?
A: (Emily) – LFM is really good at this. There is capability within the software to handle many types of customers.
The related issue I see is finding that sweet spot for a margin for anyone. Food hubs are similar to restaurants in that the price margins are not high. Trying to get farmers the price they want, and keep gas in the van, and the insurance paid… By the time you put on a minimal margin, it’s already really expensive, especially for schools and food access organizations, and it’s not really competitive with mainline distributors (e.g., Charlie’s, US Foods). Finding the right price point is a constant struggle.
I’m really interested in working with farmers to find the seconds market so we can keep prices down, and keep food out of the compost. There is a lot of room for opportunity.
Q: How are grains fitting into the Western WA food hubs?
A: (Sarah Richard, San Juan Islands Food Hub) – We have demand for them, and a few small-scale producers don’t meet it all at the moment. Cairnsprings is doing great in our area as well.
A: (Chloe Spainhower) – PSFH sells quite a bit of flour, but most of the grain we see pass through is cross-docked via LINC Foods in Spokane.
A: (Emily) – SW WA Food Hub is part of the SW WA Growers Co-op which also houses the SW WA Grain Project. They are a co-op of more than a dozen grain growers who grow barley, some wheat varieties tailored for distilling and brewing, and other specialty grains proven to grow well in SW WA. They sell those to Great Western Malting in Vancouver and Talking Cedar Distillery. LINC also has a robust grains program. The cooperative model is proving to be very helpful for grain growers because these are commodity crops that are sold in very large quantities and a co-op enables smaller acreage farmers to pool their grains to sell to large buyers. Great Western Malting only accepts rail cars full so the first thing SW WA did was to build a rail spur at the Port of Chehalis to be able to ship grain to Great Western Malting.
The grain sales numbers for SW WA Grain Project are not included in the SW WA Food Hub numbers in the report because the report is focused only on food hubs. I am not sure if LINC included their grain sales in their totals for the report.
Q: Is there a map in the report showing how the county regions break down? How do food hubs decide what counties they serve?
A: (Emily) – Distribution routes are based on where the growers are. That is where the aggregation site goes. As far as customers go, if we have enough demand to support delivery from a warehouse to a county, that is where we go. LINC and PSFH have done a lot of work with Northwest Food Hub Network to set up routes. I know back-hauling plays a role in making that financially sustainable. It’s complicated.
Q: Grants ask for regions/counties served. How are those defined?
A: (Emily) – If we were applying for a grant, we would base it on our existing sales and existing producers. It’s not an exact science.