By Blake Jackson
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer announced on Friday that FreshFix and the Veggie Van Training Center at the University at Buffalo (UB) will receive more than $700,000 in federal funding. The funding will be used to support FreshFix's new food hub, which will help connect local farmers to Western New York buyers and provide fresh, affordable food to underserved communities.
FreshFix Food Hub
The FreshFix Food Hub will be located in the Niagara Frontier Food Terminal building. The federal investment will be used to subsidize the cost of wholesale aggregation, allowing new buyers to access locally grown food from small farmers and helping small farmers increase their capacity for selling wholesale.
Benefits of the FreshFix Food Hub
- The food hub will help lower the wholesale price of locally grown foods for nonprofits, including the UB Veggie Van mobile market.
- The food hub will allow FreshFix to serve more food-insecure students.
- The food hub will help create an even more robust and resilient local food economy.
Veggie Van Training Center
The Veggie Van Training Center will work with FreshFix to provide technical assistance to nonprofits on developing food insecurity programming. FreshFix will also work with partners, including UB, to provide evaluation, partnership development, campaign tracking, and technical assistance to nonprofits on developing food insecurity programming, as well as recruiting entrepreneurs to create value-added products using excess produce, thereby reducing farm waste.
Photo Credit: gettyimages-anilakkus
Categories: New York, Business, Crops, Fruits and Vegetables