A food system should provide good healthy food that is accessible and affordable to everyone in our region. The Food Hub is an anchor in our community to realize multiple objectives and provide an ecosystem for our communities to thrive.

We are working to build an ecosystem of support for food literacy, ensure a viable regional economy of food growers and makers, and create systems that level the economic playing field and take an equity-centered approach ensuring everyone can afford and access a good healthy diet.  Integral to our strategy is to make life more affordable by providing subsidized food to those who are food insecure, and providing pathways to work experience and enterprise for those impacted while helping build a local food economy. 

We are currently working to develop a flexible program that builds on the success of our programs and serves specific vulnerable communities of interest under the banner of the Food Connections Program.

We know that food insecurity is not simply a food problem: it about access and income.  In 2021 we launched an initiative called Kitchen Connect. We are currently building a HACCP Ready, larger scale Processing Kitchen that will support our programs - it will allow us to take local food in seasonal abundance supplied by local farmers with South Island FarmHub, as well as support small processing business, and process it into products that will last all year.  The completed kitchen will test and pilot our Food Connections Skills Training and Employment Program: use of the kitchens, programs and social enterprises as a supportive ecosystem for providing skills development, life skills, employment experience and business development programming.

Donate today to improve food security by connecting community with locally made foods and employment skills training in the food system!