The USDA refers to a regional food hub as "a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand." A food hub would bring products together from a number of farmers, manage ordering and delivery. This can make it easier for farmers (one delivery rather than many smaller orders) and the purchasers (one order, delivery and one invoice rather than many to manage). There are many Kansas businesses that operate as a food hub in a variety of capacities, but what we are envisioning is something similar to the High Plains Food Coop in NW KS and the Kansas City Food Hub in the KC metro area.

Participating in afood hub can allow farmers to access new markets. A food hub would have staff support to help market a farm’s products and arrange the transportation logistics to get the products to those markets. Farmers would make a delivery to a hub location, and then the food hub could deliver those products to multiple customers, alongside other farmers’ products. This can allow the farmer more time to spend on the farm, instead of driving to multiple different delivery points. A food hub can also focus on wholesale customers and institutional buyers. Sometimes the production of an individual farm might not be enough for these customers but combined with other farmers products, a food hub can meet the demand.This opens the door for new customers for your farm’s products.

Our goal is to establish an organization that would be cooperatively led by farmers. Farmers get to decide where to market their products and set prices. Ideally the food hub is a tool to help farmers access new markets,usually wholesale markets, institutional buyers like schools and hospitals, and other opportunities that might not be manageable for them as an individual producer. The farmers involved can make decisions about what opportunities to pursue and how to avoid competing with their
existing markets.

Due to interest and connections in the area, KRC wrote a grant and was funded to work on creating a food hub in the region encompassing Lincoln, Ottawa, Dickinson, Ellsworth, Saline, Rice, McPherson, Marion, Reno, Harvey, Sedgwick, and Butler counties.

Within these counties the food hub could be located anywhere that has easy access to farmers and buyers. Food Hubs usually aggregate and distribute over a large distance and could expand beyond these counties.

Eventually the service area could be larger or smaller depending on the needs of the participating farmers, and what market opportunities are available. There are not any hard and fast rules, and how this service area looks once the hub is operational depends a lot on logistics. One small farm near the region we defined on dirt roads might not work out very well for anyone, but a cluster of farms or buyers outside the area and well connected via highways might be worth the distance covered.

Where the food hub physical infrastructure is located is entirely dependent on where best meets the needs of the farmers involved. A single central location located in a town like McPherson could work well, or several smaller aggregation and distribution points located closer to groups of farmers who are involved may be best.