Essex Food Hub & Its Early Success

Essex Food Hub, Inc., is a 501c3 nonprofit food hub established to succeed The Hub on the Hill and ensure that a vital resource continues to exist for our community.

Since our founding in 2022, EFH has been incredibly successful in assuming operations, continuing to make a big impact on our rural community and beyond. Just since April of 2023 when we began direct-to-consumer and resale operations, we have:

Put $268,000 in the pockets of North Country farmers;
Moved more than $80,000 worth of food to as many as 575 New York households in need through our mutual aid partnerships;
Aggregated and distributed, and in some cases, processed, 34,000 pounds of food to 5,000 of students receiving free lunch across the North Country;
Run six delivery routes weekly across the Adirondacks, down to the Capital Region and the Hudson Valley, and throughout New York City, as a distributor and as a delivery service for small-scale farmers and value-added food producers, traveling long miles to get food to towns that even Sysco won't serve;
Provided permanent production space for four well-established, value-added food producers in our region, in addition to commissary kitchen space and co-packing services.

Aside from continuing operations, EFH has also focused on growing, especially our Farm to Institution work. As part of this growth, EFH has already:

Become a distributor for Tangleroot Farm, North Country Creamery, Crown Point Farm and Dairy, and YesFolk Tonics, in addition to continuing to provide logistical and delivery support for nine producers. Conversations to soon onboard four additional distribution partners are underway.
Helped 50 regional institutions, not including schools, access local foods through our growing wholesale ordering, aggregation, and distribution services.
Submitted a successful bid to double the scale of our Farm to School work this academic year, in which we will supply an estimated 54,000 pounds of foods from every major food group to Champlain Valley BOCES schools serving free lunch to approximately 14,000 students.
Made important connections between local producers and community partners, including facilitating the distribution of 900lbs of donated beef from Rolling Hills Farm to Essex County Women, Infants, Children.
Participated in the formalization of a statewide network of food hubs to build resilience in our food system and create collective efficiency and opportunity by working together.

By investing in this new direction, EFH is increasing its support to local producers, making it easier for institutions to access local foods, and increasing access to local foods in our communities more broadly. On top of this, we have just been awarded more than $730,000 by the New York Food for New York Families program for a project designed to create new markets producing an annual half million dollars in revenue for farmers annually. The future is full of opportunity for our food community if we ensure EFH can get through the final stages of the transition!

The Challenge

Essex Food Hub has been operating with borrowed Hub on The Hill assets in a facility it must now return to Hub founders. For the past year and a half, we've been working hard to raise the necessary funds to remain in operation, cover the costs associated with doing business as a brand new nonprofit, and acquire all assets from The Hub on the Hill and elsewhere needed to expand this work.

The good news is that, to date, we have raised more than $1.25 million from numerous sources, including the following, without whom we would not be here today:

Adirondack Foundation, including the Bill and Lisa Powers Family Fund, Sudden and Urgent Needs Fund and Generous Acts
Charles R. Wood Foundation
Cloudsplitter Foundation
Essex Community Fund
JM McDonald Foundation
New York Health Foundation
New York Food for New York Families program, funded through the USDA
Pearsall Adirondack Foundation
Patrick Leahy Farm to School grant program, funded through the USDA
Numerous individual community donors

However, much of this funding contributes to our programmatic needs, meaning we still have a significant remaining need to complete our purchase of equipment and settle into our new home.

How YOU can help

We know EFH can continue to support local food systems and local producers, tackle food insecurity, and provide dynamic solutions for building our rural economy and addressing climate change. A food hub is an incredibly vital resource and we want to keep one here to serve our community!

Since launching our fundraising goal, we have come to terms with the reality that purchasing our current facilities for $545,000 is simply not feasible- or a sustainable investment for us. To that end, we have identified a new location we are working on finalizing leasing terms with, which greatly reduces our overall transition costs. With the funds we’ve already raised, this puts us at just over 50% of our goal.

You can help keep Essex Food Hub in our community by closing the $510,901 gap between our first two years’ startup costs and funds raised!

Help Keep the North Country's Food Hub

By Essex Food Hub, Inc.

Help Keep the North Country's Food Hub