Using Food Hubs to Improve Community Health

Project Description Narrative:

In traditional hunger relief, fresh food is costly and inefficient to source and store, leading to over-reliance by food banks and pantries on shelf-stable products that lack nutritional value. To address a need for increased access to local healthy foods, Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin and partners developed and piloted Farm Link, a community food hub connecting local producers to institutional buyers and hunger-relief programs. To expand the success of the Farm Link pilot project, partners will decentralize Farm Link across the state to create efficient connections among people to increase access to high-quality local produce and create additional opportunities farmers to supply healthy local food.

Community Partners: Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP), Wisconsin Local Food Network, Wisconsin Slo-Food Co-op, Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative, Feeding Wisconsin