Cook Inletkeeper, a Homer-based environmental nonprofit, said in January it would sunset the Alaska Food Hub to shift its focus back to the region’s oil and gas industries. That’s in part due to President Donald Trump’s move to expand drilling in Alaska.
The hub was an online platform, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where local farmers and fishermen could sell their goods. Consumers would order and pick up their food items at one of several distribution points across the peninsula, from Soldotna to Seldovia.
“It’s really loved by the customers who’ve used it and all the vendors that we’ve helped produce,” said Loren Barrett, co-executive director of Cook Inletkeeper. She says in its heyday, about 40 local farmers and fishermen were part of the program.
The food hub was intended to be a two-year pilot program launched in 2016, but blossomed into a nearly decade-long food distribution endeavor. For some farmers, it relieved the burden of setting up at in-person farmers markets.
“A lot of them started out not really sure if they were going to be farmers, and now they’ve got huge, full fledged operations,” Barrett said.
For small-scale producers like Jubilee Farms in Soldotna, the Alaska Food Hub was a more convenient way to sell eggs and plant starts. Owner Tina Lagoutaris says the program helped her avoid potential pitfalls of farmer’s markets, like low sales and vendor fees. Plus, she says it only cost her $40 a year to sell through the program.
“It was a nice way to do it, because it's a lot easier for me, personally, to fill that than to load everything up to go to a farmer’s market and have to sit there all day long, like on a Saturday, in all kinds of weather to sell my product,” Lagoutaris said.
Outside of the food hub, Lagoutaris sold eggs to local feed stores or donated them to the food bank.
Homer-based Twitter Creek Gardens has been involved with the food hub since its inception. The nine acre farm grows and sells mixed vegetables.
“The biggest value that the food hub added to our business was to be able to reach outlying communities because of their delivery service," said Emily Garrity, owner of Twitter Creek Gardens. "And also probably just marketing outreach because that was built into the program.”
Although the food hub was the smallest portion of her farm’s sales – about 5% in the last two years, Garrity says it helped her reach Kenai Peninsula communities not connected to the road system, like Nanwalek. The Native village of about 250 people gets most of its food from shipments out of Homer.
According to Cook Inletkeeper’s website, over $25,000 worth of food hub products were distributed to community organizations within the last few years. That includes Nanwalek’s Elder Tea Program – a once weekly luncheon for the village’s elders.
Anthony Brewster is a cook for the Elder Tea Program. He says the food hub fed about 50 people in his community.
“From my perspective, it was really positive," Brewster said. "There were vegetables I didn't even know grew in Alaska, like the green tomatoes and some other ones, and I thought that that was really neat. I have had radishes and turnips before, but it was nice to have them from somewhere else.”
During the pandemic, Brewster says it was difficult for the community to get fresh produce. He says the food hub stepped in in 2023. Now, the community will go back to getting its produce from the grocery store.
For food producers like Jubilee Farms, the food hub’s sunset means one less way to sell its products.
Barrett, Cook Inletkeeper’s co-executive director, says the region’s food network has grown in the last decade. And although the Alaska Food Hub has ended, Barrett says the seeds are still there. She says local organizations and farmers are already talking about the next step in the region’s food market.
