Update Week of 3/16

While our project began by examining what food hub model would be the best for the District of Columbia to implement, it has now evolved to answer a different question. As Blake and I delved deeper into the issues of food hubs, we found that the issue was not so much what model of food hub was best, instead, it was more important to determine how food hubs are working to overcome challenges.  Therefore, our research question has morphed into the following:  In order for a food hub to be successful in the District of Columbia, what challenges would it have to overcome? According to the USDA’s Resource Guide on Regional Food Hubs, all across the country food hubs are running into four major problems that will potentially undermine their longevity. These four challenges are: managing supply and demand, price sensitivity, access to capital, and managing growth. In order to assess how, or if at all, the already established food hubs or food hub-like entities within the District are experiencing these problems, we created a number of interview questions for the list of Food Hubs within or surrounding the District. Another set of interview questions was created for potential buyers from the food hub. This group included universities, restaurant chefs, and hospitals.  

At this point we have had three different interviews. One was conducted with Jay Heller, a chef within the District who has actively been trying to source food locally for a number of years, Benjamin Bartley, Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture’s Director of Food Access, and Amy Bachman, the Procurement and Sustainability Manager at DC Central Kitchen. Mr. Heller pointed out that one major issue from the buyer’s perspective is that price can be a major prohibition to chefs purchasing locally grown food. In addition, for those who are trying to purchase locally, they are experiencing fierce competition in the market. Mr. Heller believes that some type of cooperation needs to be set up among restaurant chefs in order to make sure there is equilibrium between the demand and supply side of local food.

Mr. Bartley and Ms. Bachman both highlighted that another major issue facing food hubs in the District is their inability to grow due to the lack of storage space available. Both entities are currently at capacity given the real estate the currently own. Both are also “renting” storage space from other entities in order to meet their demand, although they do not actually pay rent.  In order for both entities to grow, they underlined the need for affordable real estate. Renting or purchasing property in the District is known to be quite expensive. If the District wants to truly establish a successful food hub within its borders, it will want to look at how prohibitions due to high real estate prices can be assuaged. In order to get a better sense of what the other cities have done to overcome the issue of high real estate prices, we will speak with Greg Heller on March 26^th. Mr. Heller is responsible for setting up the new food hub within Baltimore. The Baltimore case is pertinent, because the land for the food hub was purchased from the city by the food hub for a minimal price of $500,000.

Finally, Blake & I have begun to discuss metrics on how to best measure the sustainability and success of food hubs. These talks are in the preliminary stages and will hopefully solidify further over the next three weeks.