Abstract
Food hubs serve as intermediaries between market actors in the aggregation and distribution of local food. Scholars have identified four common food hub models: retail-driven, nonprofit-driven, producer-driven, and consumer-driven. The nonprofit sector has played a prominent role in emerging alternative food networks such as food hubs. This research uses qualitative methods to analyze the development of nonprofit food hubs in Vermont, as well as potential challenges faced and opportunities gained by this model. The results suggest that nonprofit food hubs in Vermont can foster the awareness and education necessary to create and expand a thriving community food system, allowing multiple actors to participate at multiple levels. In this way, nonprofit food hubs provide a vehicle for cooperation between farmers and consumers. The most successful food hubs are those that develop within existing organizations; through the multifunctionality of the organization, the food hub can help educate consumers and producers and foster relationships that can lead to an increase in a local food system's capacity. Analysis reveals that although nonprofit food hubs offer the potential to positively impact local food systems, there are key areas of perceived vulnerability that threaten the overall resilience of this model. Recommended interventions for building resilience in nonprofit food hubs include technical assistance, market analysis, and business planning to foster financially stable nonprofit food hubs with sustainable program models and business structures.
Highlights
Food hubs have become a popular method of supporting local food systems, yet understanding of the organizational characteristics of different food hub models is still limited (Matson & Thayer, 2013)
We found that the major contribution of nonprofit food hubs in supporting alternative food systems is their multifunctionality, or the array of civic agriculture–based services that are offered for the specific community that the nonprofit serves
The results indicate that there are two major development patterns of nonprofit food hubs in Vermont: those that developed within existing nonprofit organizations, and those that developed as new nonprofit entities
Summary
Food hubs have become a popular method of supporting local food systems, yet understanding of the organizational characteristics of different food hub models is still limited (Matson & Thayer, 2013). An emerging type of AFN, have the potential to expand the reach of AFNs beyond direct markets by providing supply chain services such as aggregation and distribution of products from multiple suppliers to multiple consumers or consumer groups. These services are needed due to the difficulty of delivering adequate and reliable quantities of food to mass markets, while still maintaining the farmers’ identities and connections to consumers (Conner, Izumi, Liquori, & Hamm, 2012). Nonprofit food hubs offer the potential to positively impact local food systems through a “civic agriculture” lens, yet this model is vulnerable due to an overall lack of information and best practices, a reliance on volunteers, and unstable funding sources
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