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14 food hubs around the state that provide vital support to small- and medium-sized local farms by working to aggregate, store, process and distribute locally grown, culturally preferred foods to Hawaiʻi’s residents.
Hawaiʻi is the most isolated population on the planet – making our island state’s food supply extraordinarily vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, natural disasters and other emergencies. Over the past few years, Hawaiʻi’s food hubs have emerged as a vital solution to supporting local farmers and food producers to improve Hawaiʻi’s food security.
A working group of the non-profit Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance, the Hawaiʻi Food Hub Hui (HFHH) was established in 2017 and today encompasses 14 food hubs around the state that provide vital support to small- and medium-sized local farms by working to aggregate, store, process and distribute locally grown, culturally preferred foods to Hawaii’s residents.
The nation’s only food hub association of its kind, HFHH aims to raise the capacity of Hawaiʻi’s food hubs systemically by fundraising, coordinating market opportunity, advocating for policy and legislative change, and providing technical assistance to food hubs. To realize that vision, HFHH works to grow and expand connections between local farmers and food hubs, coordinate access to wholesale markets and institutions, and solve infrastructure needs of food hubs to fill gaps along the local supply chain.
Focused on helping local farmers produce and earn more, HFHH has a goal to triple the output of Hawaiʻi’s food hubs by 2025 – an increase of local production and sales for Hawaiʻi’s food system that generates more revenue for local farmers
As of 2023, Hawaiʻi’s food hubs support 1,337 farms that currently serve approximately 14,465 customers per year across all Hawaiʻi counties.
With further investment, food hubs alone will have the capacity to increase in-state food production by at least 10% over the next 10 years – supporting other food security initiatives underway statewide.
Funds are needed to further increase food hub capacity. A portion of the funds would be used to increase the capacity of food infrastructure for each food hub to store, process and deliver more local food to more wholesale markets and to develop value-added products for business and institutional buyers. The remainder is needed for the food hubs to help farmers double their production.
We estimate that $50 million is needed over the next five years to scale the hubs and increase food production – enabling food hubs to generate $300 million in local sales annually by 2032, which would significantly benefit all residents in our state. We are well on our way, and in the last 2 years, we have together with partners raised over 3.5 million to support local food hubs:
Focused on helping local farmers produce and earn more, HFHH has a goal to triple the output of Hawaiʻi’s food hubs by 2025
14 food hubs to aggregate, store, process and distribute locally grown, culturally preferred foods to Hawaii’s residents.
To realize that vision, HFHH works to grow and expand connections between local farmers and food hubs
