The Farm, Food, and Family Education Center (F3EC) is a dynamic, innovative, and collaborative place for people and organizations to build systems that strengthens economies, enhances resilience, and builds community. This Education facility will serve as a “hub” for innovative and collaborative sharing of resources and ideas. It will house a food hub and shared kitchen space that will be an integral part of strengthening the local food system in Randolph County.

A food hub as defined by the USDA is “a centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distributions, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.” It is an online marketplace where local producers list the products they have available for sale and makes shopping for local foods easy. The producer’s role within a food hub is managing their products listed on the website (E.g. updating the pounds of hamburger meat available) and bringing their products to the food hub before pick-up day according to what has already been pre-sold via the online marketplace. The rest is for the food hub to take care of. Consumers utilize the food hub’s website to pre-purchase items and pick them up on the designated day. The on-site facility has dry, cold, and freezer storage for producers that sell at the food hub. For an example of a working food hub, visit (https://www.highcountryfoodhub.org/) to see the High Country Food Hub.

The shared kitchen space within the Farm, Food, and Family Education Center will be a kitchen with various appliances and pieces of equipment that anyone within the community can use. The individual will just need to reserve the space ahead of time. For an example of a working shared kitchen visit (https://madisonextensionvakcom.wordpress.com/) to see Madison County’s Value Added Kitchen and (https://ashe.ces.ncsu.edu/hcck/) High Country Commercial Kitchen.

This survey seeks to gather data to understand the interest and needs concerning the food hub and shared kitchen at the Farm, Food, and Family Education Center.

If you need assistance in completing this survey, please contact Sophie Farlow at sophie_farlow@ncsu.edu or (336) 318-6000. N.C. Cooperative Extension is an equal opportunity provider.