Setup a Food Hub as a Community Resilience Tool

Black Hills State University (BHSU) and Spearfish community partners are seeking to create a culture that supports and values local food in order to expand the reach and depth of our regional local food economy. The Black Hills Food Hub, launched in October 2016, takes the produce from many farms, adds it all together, and then sells it to customers. This allows some farmers to specialize in a few crops that they prefer to grow and/or to have a venue for sales that they otherwise would not have. The food hub eliminates barriers of purchasing local food on cafeteria management, reducing the time and organization needed for both the ordering process and delivery. Additionally, large-quantity commitments from buyers lend unprecedented support to the local food economy. While a food hub in itself is not unique today, we have taken the food hub model beyond the traditional catering to high-end restaurants and marketed local food instead to cafeterias. By servings cafeterias, the Black Hills Food Hub aims to get local food to the greatest number of people from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, the Black Hills Food Hub is unique to the area and designed to be replicable in remote and rural areas, where high-end dining is few and far between.