Evolving Connections

Food hubs in the Southeast are expanding to serve changing community needs

- MARGARET LITTMAN

in 2022, GrowFood Carolina, one of South Carolina's leading food hubs, expanded into a new operating space with a test kitchen in hopes of teaching a new generation how to cook with the fresh food they provide. In its 12 years in existence, the Charleston-based nonprofit has returned more than $10 million to farmers in rural communities in the state, about 80 percent of its sales revenue. Today, GrowFood works with more than 120 farmers in the state.

Food hubs aren't new, of course. Like GrowFood, many have been around for more than a decade, during a period that was fertile for the launching of these types of organizations. In recent years many models and missions have evolved from solely offering aggregation and distribution to looking at even more ways of getting local and regional foods into shoppers' kitchens.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a food hub as "a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products, primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand." This broad definition is primarily used for applying for grants and is not a regulatory definition.

"What makes a food hub special rather than a conventional wholesaler is the value that we put on relationships," says Anthony Mirisciotta, general manager of GrowFood Carolina.