Building Rural Grocery Viability through Food Hubs

^{Presenters seek to address the following problems: small to mid-size growers in rural communities face challenges getting their products to the market; food hubs, designed to improve market access, are often unviable in rural communities; many rural grocery stores are going out of business due to shrinking populations, competition from discount stores, meeting distributor minimums, lack of financing for store improvement, high operation costs, and decreased community support; and the impact of store closures on loss of jobs, local spending, and healthy food access. By embedding food hubs into rural grocery stores, the solution hypothesis will create a new revenue stream for the grocery store, contributing to its financial stability, and provide a new sales and distribution channel for local growers and food producers, without incurring the high upfront investment costs of a standalone food hub.}