Building Sustainable Communities Through Food Hubs: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the current state of the food hub by discussing innovative practices supporting efforts to build healthy, equitable, and sustainable food systems. We present key insights from a roundtable discussion among scholars and Guelph, ON, N1H 8N9, Canada; Lecturer,

Scenarios for handling the impact of COVID-19 based on food supply network through regional food hubs under uncertainty

“…The determination of the scenario takes into account aspects of the food system, sustainability, and health regulations ( Hobbs, 2020 ; Sharpe et al., 2020 ; Djalante et al., 2020 ; Brand et al., 2019 ; Mittal et al., 2018 ; Brinkley, 2018 ; Ge et al., 2018 ; Levkoe et al., 2018 ; Dasaklis et al., 2012 ). The food system should be developed with consideration of food security and food safety ( Galanakis, 2020 ; Rizou et al., 2020 ).…”

“…The RFH could be the optimal form of food supply network as it can ensure the supply of food for the entire region, and also has implications for reducing carbon emissions (Galanakis, 2020;Hobbs, 2020;Sharpe et al, 2020). The determination of the scenario takes into account aspects of the food system, sustainability, and health regulations (Hobbs, 2020;Sharpe et al, 2020;Djalante et al, 2020;Brand et al, 2019;Mittal et al, 2018;Brinkley, 2018;Ge et al, 2018;Levkoe et al, 2018;Dasaklis et al, 2012). The food system should be developed with consideration of food security and food safety (Galanakis, 2020; Rizou et al, 2020).…”

“…An effective strategy to ensure food supply is to develop food hubs. A food hub is a business organization that supports local and regional producers, principally as an aggregator, distributor, manager of food security, and marketing operator for smallholder distributors, as well as to satisfy the wholesaler, supermarket, HORECA (Hotel, Restaurant, and Catering), and other marketplaces ( Levkoe et al., 2018 ; Fischer et al., 2015 ). The conceptual model of food hubs is evolving, and hubs have widely adopted innovation to support locales and their goals ( Ballantyne-Brodie and Telalbasic, 2017 ).…”

"Put Your Own Mask on Before Helping Someone Else": The Capacity of Food Hubs to Build Equitable Food Access

“…These arguments are reinforced by the broader call to rebuild the food systems planning function that many local governments in the U.S. performed at the start of the 1900s (Pothukuchi & Kaufman, 2000;Vitiello & Brinkley, 2014). As some participants in this study stated, the key is to ensure that governments recognize that public support for food system interventions, such as food hubs, is likely to yield economic, public-health, environmental, and social returns on investment (Roberts, 2014) and is just as critical as their work on housing, roads, schools, and other basic services (Levkoe et al, 2018).…”

Integrated Food Systems Governance: Scaling Equitable and Transformative Food Initiatives through Scholar-Activist Engagement

“…This session brought scholars and practitioners at the forefront of integrated food systems governance into a conversation about how academics, activists, policymakers, and other actors can better work together in pursuit of common goals. In doing so, it built on similar sessions organized at previous AAG meetings by members of the Geographies of Food and Agriculture Specialty Group (GFASG) (see Levkoe, Hammelman et al, 2018;Levkoe, McClintock et al, 2016). GFASG members identified leaders in food systems governance at national and local scales as participants.…”