Cook Inletkeeper initiated the concept of the Kenai Peninsula Food Hub in early 2015. Through the funding of Local Foods Promotion Program, a two-year grant provided by the USDA, the Food Hub will open for business in April 2016.
The goal of the Food Hub is to provide opportunities for Kenai Peninsula producers and consumers to connect in a way that will create benefit for both, as well as strengthen the Kenai Peninsula economy, increase food security, and reduce the carbon footprint created from importing food. In so doing so, the Food Hub will:
- Provide locally produced food and products direct from our producers, connecting producers to consumers
- Serve local consumers of all income levels
- Support sustainable, local, high quality agricultural practices
- Provide a network for the production and distribution of locally prepared foods and locally made non-food products
- Support a Kenai Peninsula food system that in turn preserves the landscape, water, soil and air vital to a sustainable community