What About Food Hubs?
Been thinking a lot about this subject of Chipotle and its emerging new standards, which their CEO says will put them 10–15 years ahead of industry norms, and which will make them “the safest place to eat.”
Whether or not it’s hyperbole, it’s too good a soundbite to not pass along. As a small farmer getting started growing organically on a commercial scale, I have to wonder how they do it.
What does Chipotle do exactly for provisioning from small farmers and as a result of what’s happened, what will they do differently? As there are no Chipotles within range of me, it’s not a practical problem I need to solve immediately.
But as I wrote not long ago, what if McDonald's wanted to start provisioning it’s restaurants with local produce — even just a percentage? It seems like these kinds of business practice changes would imply a system-level shift in terms of how food is acquired from small farmers, processed and distributed.
As hilarious as it would be in my imagination, I don’t picture myself any time soon going in the kitchen door of the local McDonald’s to drop off my locally-grown sustainable garlic and culinary herbs with their head chef. I would be utterly into that if it’s in the cards though, McDonald’s. prove me wrong! [/Paging Sarah]
In lieu of the above scenario coming to pass, I have to imagine there being some kind of collection, processing and distribution facility that somebody like Chipotle or McDonald’s would be maintaining. In the case of Chipotle, what will be the specifics of how that system works? Who runs it, and according to what standards?
What if it were run by the community in conjunction with producers and transformers? Something like what I understand the Louisville Foodport must be like:
Sorry to TEDx you guys, but there’s something to explore around these subjects I think.
Some people have suggested that the deficit in our current agricultural system is going to be solved through data or — worse “disruption” — but I would suspect that what would do the most to actively change the situation would have to do with collection, inspection, handling, distribution and sale (getting products to market efficiently).
In short, it would have to do with food hubs which could be run at standards which bridge the offerings and needs of small producers with a wide variety of buyers. And moreover, within those experiments and solutions, there are so many interesting avenues for revitalizing local, urban and rural economies around food and allied sustainable businesses…
That to me feels like both the opportunity and the challenge that we’re currently facing.
