The Food Hub

The Mendo Lake Food Hub is a network that connects farmers and the goods they produce with grateful consumers who want to partake in fresh, local, and nutritious food. In the final episode of the 3rd season of “The Positive Fantastic” podcast, I interviewed Haerah Baird, the Program Manager for NCO’s Mendo Lake Food Hub.

The Food Hub is a network that connects farmers and the goods they produce with grateful consumers who want to partake in fresh, local, and nutritious food. As a farmer myself, I feel really enthusiastic about anything that uplifts farmers, and farming and facilitates access to fresh farm goods. The food hub does all of this and also provides a resiliency model for food access in the case of an emergency. 

However, I wanted to interview Haerah and spread the news about the Food Hub primarily because I want more folks to utilize this resource right now. We have an abundance of amazing produce coming out of Mendocino and Lake Counties, and the Food Hub is the only organization that I’m aware of whose mission statement is to facilitate the distribution of our local food resources around these counties. 

The Food Hub is doing its part by creating the infrastructure for this food distribution network. With a warehouse location in Ukiah that serves as the tangible hub for incoming and outgoing orders, and an online ordering platform to support you getting exactly what you want from the local bounty available, all that is needed is you!

Home consumers, restaurant accounts, and others that buy from the hub are directly contributing to the local farmer producers. Furthermore, each sale is keeping the hub operating. The more that local folks use this resource, the more that the hub can do to expand to even more products, services, and support for all members of the community.

I don’t usually have such a compelling call to action, but I do believe that this kind of grass roots food activism is one very important way to lessen our carbon footprints, build up our local farmers, and support healthy living —which is a win-win-win all around. Not many folks that I talk to even know about the Mendo-Lake Food Hub, so I’m hoping that you will give this podcast a listen, and recommend it and the hub around. I am excited about seeing the Food Hub thrive, and you can tune into the podcast to hear the Positive Fantastic taking a look at how we can put fresh, local, and sustainable food production to the front. 

Check out my channel at YouTube.com/morinatura to see a video of Haerah showing off the Mendo Lake Food Hub Warehouse and its refrigerated fleet of vehicles for aggregation and distribution around Northern California. 

To check out the Food Hub, get a bounty box or a bounty bag or make a special order, go to www.mendolakefoodhub.org and click on the “Shop Now” button. 

Special appreciation to Alice Dimicele for her cover of “The Garden Song” at the beginning of this episode. It has been really lovely to have Alice as the featured musical guest for 2023 and season 3. Big love to Alice for all the wonderful tunes and support for this podcast! For more info about her music, you can visit her website www.alicedimicele.com 

This episode of the Positive Fantastic has been brought to you on the last day of 2023, and I hope you’ll join us in Season 4 for more adventures in how humans can thrive.

Cheers and may you be nourished!