Hi Sue! Local Food Marketplace offers the ability to create custom product sheets for customers and create unique shopping experiences based on a customer’s profile- so a Texas customer could see only Texas products if you wanted them to. LFM has been supporting farmers and food hubs for 17 years, has an extensive track record of success, and…

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Hey everyone, what’s your latest recommendation for food hub management software? We have a client who needs to manage not just daily operations but also present customers with only the products they’re interested in. For example, a Texas school that will only buy Texas-grown food will not want to see Iowa products. Of course, the…

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<font face=”inherit”>Alachua County, FL is undertaking a pilot Food Hub effort named the </font><font face=”inherit”>Fresh Food Pathways project. We are excited to share the finalized RFP documents with you (below)</font> Those who have access to the link should be able to access the folder on Google Drive and download the files.…

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We’re looking for an iPad-based cash register solution that has basic inventory functions and can process SNAP, WIC, & DA BUX. We typically use TotilPay GO for processing, but their TotilPay Register solution doesn’t allow for Double Up Food Bucks integration.

Has anyone found a solution for this? Adaptation to this software, or a completely…

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Local Food Marketplace just released an updated resource called “Selling to Restaurants: A Guide for Farms and Food Hubs.” Drawing on interviews with three farms and food hubs, plus our own experience, we address topics such as how to understand and communicate your value, how to determine which restaurants might be good partners, what to do…

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Hi everyone! We’re looking to improve some of our Quickbooks functionality and I’m going to implement account numbers. Does anyone have a chart of accounts they would be willing to share? I’m trying to make sure I set us up well for both our normal wholesale hub operations but also in the event we add CSA, etc. Thank you!

Our food hub operates both a brick and mortar store and online farmers market. Our online sales software is Local Food Marketplace, which is now able to accept SNAP EBT. We have our FNS approval, and will be launching our instore SNAP this first quarter. For online, our stumbling block is that for EBT payments need to go through immediately…

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Katelyn

I would be happy to show you the Lulus Local Food software platform. It is used by farmers, farmers markets and food hubs.

Contact me at Luluslocalfood@gmail.com

Molly Harris

Hi Food Hub Folks!

I have a food hub looking into software that is specific to direct to consumer subscriptions– that has good customization capability, good backend and customer experience. Anyone have any recommendations for companies offering this that you’ve had a positive or negative experience with that you care to share? Thank you!

Katelyn

Hi everyone! Posted this in the food safety discussion group too…Any recommendations for online food safety trainings geared for people starting an aggregation/food hub business? The only ones I’ve seen are Cornell’s Good Manufacturing Practices Part 117 training (but, as the name implies, it’s very specific to that part of the…

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Hi All!

I am curious if anyone is familiar with any resources that provide rough outlines or
charts of basic infrastructure needs (e.g. cold storage) for food hubs getting started based on
estimated volume/customers, possibly also including cost ranges and
specifications. Estimates would be helpful for people applying…

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Hi Kat – I loved your question and will need to answer this question in the future. I came across this resource (https://members.foodsystemsnetwork.org/members/classifieds5.php?org_id=NAFS) just now – if you type in “hub” in the Search bar, you’ll see several positions.

Also this may be a weird answer/idea, but you could try asking Chat GPT for…

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Sorry – Corvallis, Oregon

Kat

Hi Food Hub Enthusiasts –

As part of a feasibility study that a group of folks are completing for a food hub in South Corvallis, we would very much like to develop a few job descriptions. Would any of you be willing to provide descriptions for a variety of roles?

Thank you!

Kat Walter

Hello-

I wanted to share that Alachua County, FL currently has a request for proposals out for assistance to develop a feasibility and business plan for a local food hub in our community in collaboration with our local partners. Please spread the word in your networks and with any food hubs, consulting organizations or individuals you think…

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Any Food Hubs using a membership model that provides additional benefits to producers and consumers? Love to connect with examples. Thanks

Yes that is totally the hub’s point, but the FNS guy was apparently adamant – not sure how widespread this interpretation is, but we for sure need some clarification.

I guess I don’t see how it’s not like a regular retailer. Grocery gets food and pays 30 to 60 days later. If you are doing a receiver, you are taking possession.

Thanks for checking in! I think the model is like yours. The customers pay the hub and the hub pays the producers for all their sales on a monthly basis. The prices the customers see and pay are the producer price plus a admin fee of like 20% or so that goes to the hub.

It definitely does feel like when the hub is aggregating customer orders…

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Hey Laurie, we have a similar model here at Eastern Market. We list farm and food products on our online site and consumers order weekly. Technically, the payment goes to Eastern Market, and then Eastern Market pays the invoices of our suppliers. Does your online platform have payments going to direct to your farm and food businesses? I guess I…

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That could totally be, but I am not sure how that would work for an online hub, which often lets a producer “harvest to order” – a huge advantage for everyone. I think at that point, if they were buying (and I assume, storing) the products before offering it to the consumer, they would just be a normal brick and mortar grocery store? It…

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It does seem like it would affect many hubs in the country if this is the rule (or if this has been the rule and the FNS is starting to enforce it)!

There is an appeal process, and the hub has til Nov 9 to send an appeal letter but I think it has to be based on something. They are saying the hub is not a retail store because it doesn’t…

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Maybe they need to buy the produce from the producer then sell to the customer? Also, the snip it says they can reply so I would reapply and provide lots of detail and information.

Hi Laurie,

Is there an appeal process, or a process you are undertaking to understand more? Is there any follow up one could do? This would then affect most markets around the country if this type of enforcement will be in place. Any additional info you could add would be helpful. We have hubs here started in MN, and are pushing for more SNAP.

Hi Hubsters: one of the food hubs I am supporting does pretty much all their sales and marketing online, like a lot of hubs: customers order from their online store, they tell the producers what got ordered, the producers bring what got ordered, the hub aggregates and takes money from the customers, then distributes the money to the…

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WOW! Thanks everyone for the speedy reply! I’ll definitely look into everything you suggested!

We have used Local Food Marketplace in several capacities and so far have been extremely happy with their customer service, pricing, and diversity of functionality. Farmers for the most part that we’ve worked with in Oklahoma have found it fairly intuitive as well. Lots of robust reporting options and “attributes” to further identify…

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Live links are nice, I guess ? :

What is OFN?

Congratulations McKenna! What a journey!

Whoops I meant to include this – but here is the live link to the new site https://shop.foodconnects.org/ (still working out bugs and getting content updated and LOL probably will be for awhile, but so far so good!) link might be slowish for awhile as we are uploaded lots of data. Thanks!

https://shop.foodconnects.org/

It looks like there’s hooks into WordPress, but you could ask the MN Farmers’ Market Food Hub what they’ve found and used successfully: Minnesota Farmers’ Market Hubs (farmersmarkethub.org)

I’m a little biased but I would encourage you to check out the Open Food Network (about.openfoodnetwork.net). It’s a pretty well-kept secret because we’re a mostly-volunteer-run nonprofit that develops the software cooperatively with a global community of other nonprofits and our marketing budget is zero, but we’ve been around for over 10 years…

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Hey there!!

Good Luck – it’s a big project but SO WORTH IT!

I’m the Director of the Food Connects Food Hub in Vermont (wholesale aggregation/distribution hub only – no case-splitting/repacking or direct-to-consumer)

We are literally in the midst of launching our new platform TODAY! After years of research and almost transitions to other…

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What software does everyone use for their online market? Pros & Cons? We’re in the midst of leaving our software that we have used for 8 years (since we started as a food hub) and the undertaking in switching software is daunting to say the least. Everyone has jumped from our software so we are needing to migrate to a new software in order to…

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Hi! We have set margins on our products. In theory these margins cover our delivery costs. We have 3 separate market structures. Two wholesale (one regional and one out of our Valley) & one retail. Our retail market is in align with a grocery store markup. There’s a lot more detail and work involved with those orders so it justifies the…

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Aloha all! Wondering if anyone has a food truck or processing space they rent out to producers and has a guide they’d be willing to share? We’re looking for examples so we don’t have to start from scratch in making ours. Mahalo in advance for any leads or docs you can share.

Hello All!

We are excited to announce that Spring Creek Food Hub in Springdale, Arkansas is hiring for five open positions. Spring Creek Food Hub connects farmers and community, putting local food on local tables. By providing education, technical assistance, and supply chain access for local farmers, we move food to where people eat, shop,…

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Thank you all for the info! Elizabeth thank you so much for sharing this draft– super helpful and awesome to get a sneak peak of what’s to come from the report. Much appreciated.

Hey Katelyn –

Michigan State University, in partnership with the Wallace Center, is wrapping up analysis of the 2021 Food Hub Survey. In this study, we asked hubs about salary and benefits – and include a breakdown of answers for managers and employees. I’m attaching here the *draft* excerpt of this data, which shows minimum, maximum and…

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Any nonprofit food hubs out there willing to share their bylaws? Looking for some examples! TIA

Hi Katelyn,

We are in the beginning phase of a food hub inside a non-profit organization. We are determining our salaries based on two studies of non-profit salaries in our county and in our state. We are considering the level that the person functions in our organization. For example, the person overseeing the hub would be considered a…

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Hello community,

I am based in Montreal, QC, Canada, and work with 4 certified organic farms to build a food hub (Non profit), virtual for stage 1 with mutualisation of services (crop planification, sales, deliveries, marketing) and hoppefully a wharehouse (coldroom and primary transformation) soon for phase 2 to scale up the operations.

We…

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Hi Food Hub Folks!

This is a question I’ve continually come across and just want to see if any of you know of any data that is out there that helps food hubs determine competitive salaries for their employees? National averages for similar job descriptions within mission-oriented local food moving food hubs (and not just the broad category of…

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This is a common model we see across the Midwest, and in MN. One concept I wanted to explore was the use of already staffed state agency delivery trucks; those that already have regular routes in different geographic areas of a state. Some refrigerated, some frozen, some not. I wonder if we couldn’t work with state DoT’s to further explore…

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We are very new and very small, so I’m not sure how helpful I can be, but wanted to throw in my two cents. We sit in a larger non-profit. We only have two regular customers, but are expecting 2-3 more in the next 2 months. We are not yet charging for delivery, but I suspect we will in a few months. We may charge our first 3-5 customers a…

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Hello Hub Hive Mind,

How do you capture transportation costs? Do you charge delivery fees? Do you rent or own your refrigerated trucks? Do you contract with transportation companies? Our Hub is grappling with growth and the shift most experienced with the pandemic. Any discussion here is appreciated. I love the way Boston Food Hub – Home has…

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Thank you Valerie – yes it’s definitely a significant commitment. That said, it does send a strong values message to those who know the program.

Thank you! I’ve sent you a DM

Hi, I have been going through the assessment and it seems like we’d need to make a big commitment to move that way from where we currently are. I like using the assessment though, to set some specific goals for becoming a more responsible organization or establishing reportable metrics.

Valerie Smith

She/Her/Hers

Quality Assurance…

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