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Food Hub Convening: Best practices & lessons learned. Eileen Horn , Douglas County Food Policy Council Emily Miller, KC Healthy Kids Cole Cottin , Kansas Rural Center Mercedes Taylor-Puckett, Kansas Farmers Union. Four Key Themes:.
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Food Hub Convening:Best practices & lessons learned Eileen Horn, Douglas County Food Policy Council Emily Miller, KC Healthy Kids Cole Cottin, Kansas Rural Center Mercedes Taylor-Puckett, Kansas Farmers Union
Four Key Themes: • Exploring the need for a food hub. What data do you need? • Building relationships with stakeholders. How can we facilitate regional collaborations? • Engaging producers. How do you engage these key stakeholders and understand their challenges and opportunities? • Building markets. How can we simultaneously build markets for producers to scale up, and how can cooperatives play a role?
WHO IS THE DOUGLAS COUNTY FOOD POLICY COUNCIL? • Established by the County Commission in Sept. 2009. • Works to identify the benefits, challenges and opportunities for a successful food system. • Represents a wide range of stakeholders in food system.
OUR FIRST STEP: COMMUNITY FOOD SYSTEM ASSESSMENT Source: USDA Food Environment Atlas
PROCESSING Processing facilities in tricounty region: 46 state licensed food processors (primarily specialty food products) 4 storage facilities (all in DG County, 2 are beer/liquor distributors) 34 meat processing facilities (within 100 miles, far below demand) 5 farmers’ markets (to serve a population of 200,000+)
FOOD HUB FEASIBILITY STUDY Timeline: Final report May 2014 Proposed product: Feasibility study for a northeast Kansas regional food hub Methods: Producer surveys, institutional and wholesale purchaser surveys (throughout fall-winter 2013) Funding: USDA Rural Development & Kansas Health Foundation
Questions? Eileen Horn, ehorn@douglas-county.com Emily Miller, emiller@kchealthykids.org Cole Cottin, ccottin@kansasruralcenter.org Mercedes Taylor-Puckett, mercedes.taylorpuckett@gmail.com