Vashon’s farming organization has begun the feasibility study for a proposed “food hub” to aggregate and prepare island food products for wholesale, and some island farmers are beginning to see potential for the facility and the growth of farming on the island.

The Vashon Island Growers’ Association (VIGA) has created a steering committee of 14 to guide the project and has contracted with Northwest Agriculture Business Center (NABC) to complete the three-phase study. The committee met with VIGA and NABC last week to discuss phase one of the study, the outreach process. NABC Project Manager Luke Woodward, who is acting as a consultant for VIGA, said he has been talking to island farmers and mainland distributors and restaurants about the food hub to gauge interest. In an interview last week, he said that the food hub has “definite potential,” but that there are not many growers on board because of the number of small farmers who already sell everything they produce. He said many island farmers have told him they sell all of their product at farmers markets and farm stands and don’t have resources or room to grow more.

But Woodward said that growing more food is not the point of a food hub, rather the facility’s aim is to make farmers’ lives easier by taking logistics, marketing and transportation details “off farmers’ hands.”

“Right now, I’m educating both farmers and retailers about why it would be beneficial,” Woodward, who has been a Snoqualmie Valley farmer for more than a decade, said. “The point is to make life easier and spend less time in the office, and more time growing and tending to products.”

VIGA received a $24,600 grant in October from the USDA for the food hub project, $15,000 of which is going toward the feasibility study. At the time, VIGA Co-Chair Emily Scott said that the facility would be “all-inclusive” and could be used to process local farmers’ food for sale to on-and off-island retailers. A statement from the organization in October reported that food hubs usually include washing and packing facilities, cold and freezer storage, a commercial kitchen for processing food and a central location for pick-up and drop off. However, Vashon’s food hub may not have all of those things and the feasibility study will determine what the island can support.

“That’s the point of the feasibility study is to find out which elements the Vashon farmers need and want and use,” VIGA food hub project manager Jenn Coe said.

Currently, some farmers use the communal kitchen at Hedy Anderson’s Sugar Shack in town. Anderson said that she doesn’t feel another community kitchen is necessary, but is open to hearing what else the facility could offer farmers.

Meanwhile, Pacific Potager’s Michelle Crawford said that a communal kitchen or food preparation area where farmers’ products could be turned into food would be useful. She used the example of sauerkraut and said that she loves sauerkraut, but can only grow the cabbage.

“I’m horrible at making sauerkraut, but if I could take my cabbage to someone who could make it for me, that would be incredibly helpful,” she said.

She also said the hub can be a way to prepare the island for future large-scale farming efforts.

“Even if we don’t need it right now, it’s not happening right now, it’s still in the feasibility phase,” Crawford said. “VIGA … plan(s) for the future, and that’s what happening. It’s anticipating further change and being ready for it.”

Rob Peterson, a farmer at Vashon’s Plum Forest Farm, which grows and sells a variety of produce and eggs at a farm stand and at the farmers market, is one of those farmers who believes that he does not grow enough to need a food hub. But, he also said a large-scale community kitchen would be helpful and can see how a food hub facility could be useful in the “greater picture,” especially with the sharing of resources it could offer.

“With the amount of land we have, we can’t grow more food, so I can’t really see a food hub for us. But … stepping back, I’m seeing how this could potentially lead to more food grown here being eaten here,” Peterson said. “I do think there needs to be more farms and my sense is that this may help. If tools to prepare food for sale and long-term cold storage are part of the plan, then that’s exciting.”

For Dave Hatfield, a farmer at Vashon’s Pink Tractor Farm who raises a variety of livestock from pigs and cattle to geese and ducks, the food hub could help him store and move product more efficiently. With an excess of product, beyond what the island needs support, he said that hundreds of pounds of frozen meat and eggs are hard to sell at any island farmers market, and the winter months when there are no Vashon markets present a special challenge. The facility’s potential to provide shared resources such as long-term refrigeration and freezing, could be especially useful for the islands’ larger farms, Hatfield said.

“I am all for a food hub,” he said. “It’s easy to just show up with a truckload (of goods) at the farmers market, but I have 80-dozen duck eggs in the fridge right now. We do a lot of meat, especially pork, and I have 800 pounds sitting in the freezer that I would love to sell. It’s hard to get product off the island on a wholesale level (and) it’s hard for me to connect with Seattle-area retailers. The island isn’t enough to financially support the farm.”

He said that Vashon restaurants only buy as much product as is needed for them to label their food, “local,” but not enough to make a dent in his large inventory. He said the island needs better infrastructure for farmers, especially if the island farming population wants to grow.

Back at VIGA, Coe said this varied population of farmers needs to be taken into consideration. She said the committee pushed NABC’s Woodward to reach out to a large cross-section of farmers and community members to gather feedback. This first phase of outreach is expected to last through mid-April before the study moves on to the second phase of evaluating sites for the facility. Three island sites are being considered, including the former K2 factory, Sunrise Ridge and some open space at Island Spring tofu factory. This site study is expected to run through June and will take into consideration permitting, zoning and ease-of-use requirements. The third and final phase of the feasibility study will create a business plan. The study is expected to conclude by mid-August.

VIGA’s steering committee will meet at least once per phase, Coe said, but meetings will depend on how much guidance is needed.