Programmatic Investments Lead to Expanded Local Purchasing for the Intervale Food Hub
Written by: April Mcllwaine, Intervale Food Hub Operations & Outreach Coordinator
In 2024, the Intervale Center was awarded $150,000 by the Henry P. Kendall Foundation to increase food purchasing by local colleges and universities in the greater Burlington, VT area. Specifically, this funding supported the Intervale Food Hub over two years as we made significant improvements to our infrastructure and invested in staff time to develop relationships with new and existing institutional partners. This grant enabled the purchase of a new refrigerated truck, which has allowed our program to provide reliable and expanded delivery of local food to area colleges and wholesale accounts. Over the last two years, our team has also undergone the development and recent launch of a live ordering platform and an improved inventory, purchasing, and invoicing system.
Through this new platform, our hope is that current customers will have a streamlined ordering experience and a better understanding of our available products. These updates are important as we work to strengthen pathways for increased local sourcing at several college campuses; benefiting farmers, students, and staff. It also provides an opportunity to connect with new wholesale customers for whom the previous method of ordering posed as a barrier to entry. With increased ease, we hope to support local food purchasing for our growing customer base while increasing back-end efficiency for our small team.
The Kendall Prize allowed the Food Hub to prioritize two areas of need concurrently and comprised investments in both 'hard' and 'soft infrastructure'. Supporting 'soft infrastructure' (partnerships and processes), which works in tandem with 'hard infrastructure' (physical assets like our new delivery truck), increases the impact immensely. Together, these investments have allowed our team to meet the needs of our current customers and better serve new markets. With the completion of this project, the Intervale Food Hub is well positioned to continue to connect small-to-mid-scale farmers and producers to institutional markets, ultimately increasing the amount of local food served at higher education campuses in our region and reducing barriers to market access for farms, especially socially disadvantaged farms. This type of investment is crucial in supporting a robust local food system that strengthens food security and farm viability statewide.