Thanks to a state matching grant, a partnership between two Kingston food companies—a co-packer and a distributor—will continue to grow as a burgeoning food hub in New York’s Hudson Valley, bringing the region’s produce, meat and value-added food products to the New York City food market and the tri-state area—even nationally, through such products as Rick’s Picks artisanal pickles and pickled vegetables.
In February, the state awarded $3.6 million in funding to develop four food distribution hubs to provide additional funding for a hub in Riverhead in Long Island, N.Y. Of this amount, Kingston will receive $775,000 to expand the infrastructure of the partnership of Farm to Table Co-Packers and Hudson Valley Harvest, which has been operating since 2011 in the large former IBM facility in Kingston, mostly empty since massive layoffs in the early 1990s.
“This is really important. This money is helping us grow,” says Paul Alward, who had farmed 15 acres for livestock in New Paltz before co-founding Hudson Valley Harvest. “And for the people in this region, it provides them with great-quality, traceable, sustainably raised food. You know where our food is from, and you know it’s fresh, great food.”
Food hubs—a relatively new and thriving business model—provide the infrastructure and logistical and marketing support that small and midsize farms and producers cannot achieve on their own to get their products to market. Nationwide, as of May, the USDA lists 223 food hubs; the median number of small and midsize suppliers for these hubs is 40.
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