Food Hub Network

Coordinator: Sydney DeLuna

What is the Food Hub Network?

The Oregon Food Hub Club is a peer learning community of local food hub projects around the state, primarily in rural areas. These projects include nonprofit organizations, farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, cooperatively owned businesses, small food businesses, rural economic development agencies, and others. The network began convening in February 2019 and includes both established and developing hub projects. 

Oregon Food Hub Network meets monthly to share resources, learn from each other, and hear from experts. We serve food hubs that offer aggregation and distribution as well as hubs that offer shared kitchens and processing. Our topics are focused on navigating regulatory environments, improving operational skills, and financial viability for food hubs.

What is considered a Food Hub in Oregon?

In Oregon, we define a Food Hub as an organization or business that creates economic value in their communities by providing dedicated physical and logistical infrastructure that create markets for locally or regionally produced ranch, agricultural, fish, seafood, or value added products. Food hubs aggregate and source products from more than one farm, ranch, or fishery. 

Food Hubs in our network operate local & regional distribution for locally produced foods, online marketplaces, shared kitchens, processing facilities, and mobile markets. Services at each food hub are tailored to the needs of their community, examples include:

  • Purchasing, delivery, distribution, and/or aggregation of local or regional ranch, agricultural or value added products 

  • Online marketplaces and retail storefronts that primarily serve as marketplaces for local or regional ranch, agricultural or value added products

  • Shared kitchens and micro food manufacturing facilities

  • Mobile marketplaces

  • Many offer business development, farm to school, rural food access, & Veggie Rx programs

Photo of Gorge Farmer Collective truck

How to join the Food Hub Network Google Group and Meetings

You can join the Food Hub Network email listserv (aka Google Group) by simply sending an email to food-hub+subscribe@ocfsn.org. Sending this email will automatically ask you to opt-into the Google Group. Once you have joined the Google Group you will receive meeting calendar invitations, resources and other communications from network members and you can send emails to the list.