WORCESTER, Mass. – Sarah Bonner’s blue sneakers scraped along a drab tan carpet as she made her way through a long corridor of corporate offices at 54 Rockdale Street. Although the building was built in 1992, the outside walls of the offices were covered with outdated wood paneling from the 1970s. The artificial light emitted from the elongated fluorescent bulbs overhead created a cavernous feel as Bonner walked deeper into the building toward her small office in the rear. 

“This is our humble little office,” she said with a giggle. The walls of her office were wrapped with the same wood paneling.

This is the current Worcester Regional Food Hub’s warehouse space that allows them to operate a food incubator business at the nearby Greendale People’s Church at 25 Francis Street. A food incubator business provides time-shared access to a commercial kitchen to help local businesses and food entrepreneurs. The Food Hub provides startup and existing food entrepreneurs with hourly kitchen rentals, technical assistance, workshops, and support.

However, as Bonner explored deeper into the bowels of the current Food Hub location, it becomes increasingly evident their current operating space hinders their ability to properly provide food business entrepreneurs with wider access to professional-grade cooking, baking, and cold-storage equipment, as well as space for food training certifications and other business planning assistance. As she walked through a doorway that connects the office section of the building to the loading dock, the sounds of saws and drills could be heard slicing through wood.

“We share this space with woodworkers,” she said, pushing through a clear plastic curtain.

To her left, there was the dry food storage area and two walk-in coolers. At her right, there was a food processing area for the Food-to-Go retail program. Bonner then pointed down another long dark corridor past the coolers. “Down there is a bakery and some other type of a, um …” She paused to think a bit. “I don’t even know what’s down there,” she said with a chuckle. “I know this isn’t too aesthetically pleasing.”

To better serve their community, Food Hub officials announced in July that they will be expanding their operations and moving to Union Station next year. Food Hub director Shon Rainford said he has hired architects to draw plans for the Union Station space and he expects construction to start in the fall.

“We expect this expansion to increase our business and help us become a sustainable operation for a long time,” Rainford said.

According to the Hub, the project will cost about $2.2 million and will be paid for by current Food Hub savings, as well as about $300,000 in additional grant funds received from development efforts, the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, and the Operation Shield Foundation. He hopes the expansion will help the Hub become less reliant on grant money in the future.

The expansion to Union Station will consolidate both the Rockdale Street and Francis Street operations, which will streamline the operation, making it run far more efficiently. They will grow from one kitchen to six.

“This is a great opportunity for the Food Hub,” Rainford said. “We will be able to keep all the food and different equipment all at the same site. We can greatly increase the number of businesses able to use the kitchens at once and we can utilize bigger, better equipment with greater storage. There’s just a great opportunity to expand.”

Wholesale Deliveries

The Food Hub is more than just a kitchen and entrepreneurial space– it’s a wholesale operation, too. They sell local food from area farms to area hospitals, colleges, and restaurants. 

Enter Britt Axelson, whose job is to store, load and deliver all the produce throughout Worcester County and beyond. On this particular day, she had to load up scallion, cherries, peaches, apples, nectarines, spinach, yellow squash, mushrooms and various kinds of lettuce, in her 18-foot box truck.

The first delivery is to the Regional Environmental Council (REC) in Worcester, who were getting ready for their weekly Mobile Farmers Market. The produce sold on the REC Mobile Farmers Market is sourced from local farms and delivered by Axelson and the Food Hub. Without the partnership with the Food Hub, REC would have a difficult time keeping their prices affordable for low-income neighborhoods.

As Axelson unloaded the cherries, peaches, and scallions and stocked REC’s cooler, Amanda McConnell was coordinating REC’s first Mobile Farmer’s Market of the summer. She said without the Food Hub, reaching people burdened by food insecurity throughout Worcester would be very difficult.

“The Food Hub is hugely important,” McConnell said. “They deliver to us so we are able to bring the food out to the community. Six out of seven days a week, we are helping people get to local food. There’s only so much food we can get on our own and only so much we can grow on our own. So having the Food Hub as that connector makes it much more convenient.”

Axelson then moved on to World Farmers in Lancaster; Cotyledon Farm in Leicester; Growing Places in Leominster; Whitemarz Farm in Lunenburg; and finally, Identity Coffee in Rindge, New Hampshire.

“I listen to a lot of podcasts,” Axelson said about the long delivery trips.

She said the trip is worth it because she loves being outside, interacting with different people and visiting the beautiful farms. Whitemarz Farm was one particular stop that seemed particularly aesthetically pleasing to Axelson. Whitemarz is a small-family owned farm that grows fresh vegetables, edible flowers and microgreens on 1.5 acres.

After unloading the truck, Daniela Marquez, co-owner of Whitemarz Farm, made small talk and offered Axelson some Mexican soda.

“I want to show you all this land. It’s beautiful,” Axelson said. “They just have their house and they cleared out over an acre of their back property. They make a lot of good use of the land. They have edible flowers and that’s really cool over there,” she said as she excitedly pointed to several approximately three-foot containers above the soil. “They have potato towers over there. They grow the potatoes upward. That’s awesome.”

Marquez said she appreciates the Food Hub. “This is something very important for us because they buy a huge volume of the produce that we grow and that helps us financially,” she said. “It’s been a very good relationship. Excellent!”

Retail Food Boxes

Britt Axelson unloads the Food Hub truck on a delivery. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba

Along with the kitchen and the wholesale food deliveries, the Food Hub provides a retail service every Wednesday as part of their operation. The food boxes vary every week, depending on the available food purchased from the local farms. This particular food box included fresh food from Worcester County and beyond, featuring lettuce from Little Leaf Farms in Devens; chicken thighs from Lilac Hedge in Holden; six ears of corns from Pioneer Valley in South Deerfield; a half pound of green and purple beans from Whitemarz Farm; two pounds of organic Italian eggplant and a pound of organic zucchini from Kitchen Garden in Sunderland; green onions from Many Hands Farm in Barre; garlic scapes from Shady Corner Farm in Sherborn; and apple cider from Carlson Orchards in Harvard.

“We put together a box mixture of local produce every Wednesday,” Bonner said. People can place an order online and simply pick up their food order curbside on Francis Street just outside the church. “It’s contactless delivery and it started at the beginning of Covid. You show up, say your name and Britt or I make the order and we put it in the back of the car and you are on your way.”

Joanne Evans of Worcester pulled up curbside and popped her trunk for her box of food. She gave the Food Hub rave reviews.

“The big thing is I can get local meats here that I know are humanely raised and grass-fed beef,” she said. “I also love supporting the local farms. Everything is just so fresh and a lot of it is organic. I’ve also tried a lot of things I never had tried before like garlic scapes. I never knew what that was. All these different foods have inspired a lot of different cooking at home. I don’t always know what everything is until I try it. It has really opened up my palette.”

Erica Bodden of Shrewsbury started coming because of the pandemic.

“I wasn’t sure about it at first, but everyone is very friendly and I like how they don’t make any mistakes,” she said. “I certainly want to help local farms. I love how fresh the food is and the price is good.”

The retail aspect of the Food Hub could expand into a retail store location at Union Station, according to Rainford. “This is a greater opportunity for all parts of the Food Hub,” he said.

In the meantime, Bonner walked from the curbside pickup station on Francis Street and entered the church door. She moved up a flight of stairs, then down a maze of several hallways, up another small set of steps to finally reach the church food storage and cooler area. This is where community members rent space for their businesses. She pointed to a large row of empty plastic bottles along the wall of a room.

“You can see we have a guy who makes Russian Kvass,” she said. “He has to keep his bottles there because we have no room. We’re bursting at the seams.” 

Across from the bottles is the actual storage room packed with boxes of food products, equipment and supplies.

“We also have equipment that everyone is free to use,” she said. “We supply all the gloves, the aprons, napkins, all that stuff.”

The space includes a freezer and two coolers and only a narrow passage to get to all the items. 

“We’re just bursting at the seams,” she said. “Covid was such a turning point. I really wanted to make sure my community was getting the best food possible. Central Mass has the most farms in Massachusetts, which I don’t think a lot of people know.”

Axelson said with some people struggling with food insecurity during the pandemic, it makes their job more essential.

“You can get so overwhelmed about everything happening in the world,” she said. “The most influence and power you can have as an individual is working with your local community. If you make your local community strong, it’s like a ripple effect. When you work with your local community, you can make everyone stronger.”