USDA Spotlights Food Hub's Impacts

The USDA has awarded Our Neighbors’ Table (ONT) a $400,000 grant for its work to expand food security and reduce the impacts of food loss and waste.
The highly-competitive Community Food Projects grant program, funded by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), highlighted 12 food access programs across the country making a significant impact on the reduction of food waste and loss. Currently in the United States, more than one-third of all available food goes uneaten through loss or waste, according to the USDA.
The grant, to be paid out over four years, will support the operation of the Seacoast Regional Food Hub in Salisbury on behalf of the Lower Merrimack Valley Coalition, a network of frontline food providers in 17 communities. The Hub will be owned and operated by ONT, a regional food access program based in Amesbury and Salisbury.
Once complete, the 24,000 square foot facility will significantly expand the region’s ability to capture and store surplus food from grocers, wholesalers, restaurants and other sources. The Food Hub will include 7,000 square feet of dry storage, 3,000 square feet of cold storage, and a Greater Boston Food Bank cross-dock that will allow for larger and more efficient deliveries and distribution for frontline food providers.
“We are grateful that USDA recognized the tremendous impacts of this important project, which is going to transform the food safety net for tens of thousands of neighbors across the region,” said ONT Executive Director Lyndsey Haight. “We still need significant community investment to get this project across the finish line, and we hope this grant will inspire others to join us in creating universal food access for all.”
In its effort to build universal food access, ONT has convened the Lower Merrimack Valley Food Coalition, a group of more than 30 frontline providers from Amesbury to Lawrence to Rowley that includes the Seacoast Food Providers network, the safety net in 12 Essex County communities that ONT supports directly.
ONT has raised $4.2 million toward the $7.8 million project, which will fully open in late summer of 2024. Fully funding the project will allow the Seacoast Regional Food Hub to operate debt free.
The elimination of food loss and waste is an additional benefit of the project, and is a cross-cutting priority of the USDA’s food security work.
While adding hundreds of thousands of pounds of food annually to the region’s food safety net, the Seacoast Regional Food Hub will keep that food out of landfills, where it creates greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
ONT’s grant, to be paid over four years, is part of a $25 million federal investment into the Community Food Projects Competitive Grants Program, which supports food and nutrition insecurity, particularly among our nation’s most vulnerable populations.
“Grants supported by this investment will reduce the amount of excess food going to waste and help make wholesome and nutritious foods available to those who need it most. Now that’s a win-win,” said USDA Food Loss and Waste Liaison Jean Buzby.
Read more in the Newburyport Daily News