GOAL | Bring more locally-grown foods - produce, meat, dairy, and seafood - into mainstream retail and food service supply chains, thus enhancing food security by increasing access to local foods and by strengthening the economics of small to mid-sized farm and fishing operations.

  

STRATEGY | Identify the most promising solutions by which local production and associated value-added activities can enter local retail and food service markets, pilot these solutions in North Carolina, and evaluate and report the results for the benefit of other states and regions.

  

On April 11, NCGT arranged for Pilot Mountain Pride (PMP; a Winston-Salem area Food Hub) and TRACTOR (an Asheville-based food hub), to tour NCGT partner (and Lowes Foods sister company) Merchants Distributors Inc. (MDI). 

MDI will be working with NCGT partner food hubs and an NCGT-sponsored Food Hub Research Intern to develop quality and packaging requirements for Food Hubs selling into their distribution network. NCGT is also supporting a Food Hub Apprentice at Feast Down East, otherwise known as the Southeastern NC Food Systems Program.

At the recent NCGT Research Symposium (see above), four of the research projects dealt directly or indirectly with food hubs. One of the projects, headed by NCGT Supply Chain Fellow Sebastian Naskaris, examined the optimal distribution routes from Pilot Mountain Pride to different retail grocery stores, and compared the options of PMP delivering directly or doing a cross-docking option with a regional distributor.

Register Now! NCGT, along with the NC Cooperative Extension Service and the NC Farm Bureau, is sponsoring a Food Hub Information Exchange on May 6 in Winston-Salem. For more information and to register, click here.

For the last few years, the agency has also been working with the NC Cooperative Extension Service to schedule grower/buyer tours and meetings throughout the state to connect growers with potential buyers.

At NCGT partner Fort Bragg, NCDA&CS has been working to identify and promote local products in base commissaries for years. "We've developed shelf tags in all commissaries that indicate North Carolina-grown products, and signage hanging from the ceiling for [local] produce and products. And more pronounced signage is in development for produce," explains NCDA&CS Marketing Specialist Tony Haywood.

The agency also participates in tent/sidewalk sales in base commissaries across North Carolina, Haywood says. "Commissaries set up tents and invite local producers so that customers can buy and sample local products," including fresh NC produce when in season. "It's a great way to draw attention to North Carolina products," he says.