Southeast food producers and fisherman may be able to expand their markets in the near future.
The Southeast Watershed Coalition is working to set up a system to sell and distribute local foods throughout the region over the next three years.
The Southeast Watershed Coalition received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in late September.
The goal is to set up a distribution and sales system for Southeast produced foods, said Watershed Coalition Executive Director Angie Flickinger.
“Part of it is developing a regional food hub that will help to aggregate and distribute local foods throughout the region,” she said.
She said the second part is helping provide the tools necessary for existing and potential food producers as well as direct-market fisherman through workshops and an annual conference.
Flickinger said the system would be based on an online marketplace, allowing producers such as existing farms in Haines and Petersburg to sell their products throughout the region.
“And we would allow consumers to go on there and purchase foods,” she said. “We would set distribution centers where we would aggregate those foods and either ship them out, or set up a date where folks from the community could come and pick up those foods.”
She said the Coalition plans on building two distribution centers in Juneau and Haines. Both would offer cold-storage facilities for perishable foods, and all of the products would be certified by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Flickinger said that this idea was sparked from a feasibility study the Takshanuk Watershed Council did last year examining the market for local foods in Haines.
“So that kind of helped spawn this concept where we thought if we combined a lot of these producers who are based throughout the region, we could create a bigger market and make it more accessible.”
The Coalition will work to identify producers throughout the region. Flickinger said the first conference will take place in Haines in early 2017.
“But, our hope is once we can get the food hub model established and the infrastructure sorted out, it will be a self-sustaining program in the future,” she said.
Flickinger said the delivery of food will be based on access to each community, and more information will be available as the program progresses.
Sealaska’s non-profit arm Haa Aani, the Sustainable Southeast Partnership, and the Takshanuk Watershed Council have jumped on to help fund the program.
