Intervale Food Hub Update and Summer Sign Up
The Intervale Center’s Intervale Food Hub – an online retail store for local food with home delivery - has seen unprecedented demand in the face of COVID-19. This time last year, we had 218 active members. Now we have 800 registered members, 450 of whom order each week. We caught up (virtually) with Reid, the Food Hub’s Sales and Marketing Manager, to hear how things are going. Here’s what Reid had to say:
Our spring season has been, in a lot of ways, very different from seasons past. We've increased sales dramatically. But the Food Hub has gone through a lot of changes - change is really the only constant around here - and we've built our business to be as lean and nimble as possible. Flexibility and teamwork are necessary and expected when you work with such a small team. We've been extremely grateful for assistance from Hannah Baxter, Gleaning and Food Access Manager, and Patrick Dunseith, Land Manager, and are very lucky to have the greater Intervale Center team supporting us. We certainly could not have grown this quickly without them. We’ve also had the help of Shelburne Farms' staff volunteers who have been fantastic, allowing us to scale up without volunteer or intern assistance.
A huge benefit of our growth has been our ability to bring in more products from current producers and establish new producer relationships. We've brought in other new items like handmade frozen pizza, maple-brewed kombucha, and locally grown organic flour that we could not access at a smaller scale. We've seen overwhelming support from our members and have been able to offer more variety in response.
Our biggest challenge has been the timing of the pandemic, which coincided with the leanest season in Vermont: when storage crops from last year's harvest are mostly depleted and when new crops are just starting to produce. That perfect storm of high demand and low supply made sourcing much more difficult, requiring a lot of extra communication and work on the part of Keith Drinkwine, Purchasing and Quality Assurance Manager, as he had to find new suppliers quickly. Keith worked very hard to find food, our producers worked hard to make that food available to us, and the rest of the team worked hard to get that food to our members.
What keeps us going? Our members. We keep a running anonymous log of our nicest customer emails to bolster us on bad days! It has been an excellent reminder of why we're doing this and how grateful our members are for our service.
The pandemic’s effects on national food systems have motivated people to strengthen their support of Vermont’s agricultural community. Farms are seeing more direct-to-consumer sales and CSA sign ups. We’ve seen more sales than ever before. What our local food system needs is consistent sales that don’t just extend into this summer and fall. We need long-term support over many years to build a robust and resilient local food system. I hope everyone who buys from Vermont’s producers understands how important this act is. It strengthens our economy, our community, and our environment. Just one repeated action does all that – and it’s delicious, too.
We are currently accepting pre-registrations now through June 1 for the full Summer 2020 season, which runs from June - October. Please visit www.intervalefoodhub.com/summer to sign up!