The ACORN Food Hub connects local farmers and growers with the people and institutions who buy and eat their products. It’s a warehouse on Exchange Street in Middlebury — where food is collected, stored and delivered — and an online market, where food purchasers can find and buy local food.

It helps small, local producers find new markets, and it gets fresh products to buyers fast so they have maximum shelf life and optimal quality. This puts promotes farm viability contributing to a vibrant local economy, and it puts the best foods into local mouths.

“We really connect to the local farms,” said Jessica Purks, the Food Hub’s operations & logistics manager. “We tell the farm’s story, we provide context and photos of each farm.”

The Online Market is for anyone who wants to buy in bulk — restaurants, retailers, groceries, caterers, schools, farmstands, and community members. In 2024, half of the buyers at the Food Hub were retailers, including general stores and farmstands.

“It’s been working great with seasonal farmstands,” Purks said. “They’re famers, they get it.”

At Starksboro’s Flatlander Farm, Lisa Burritt Drinkwine and Keith Drinkwine buy produce and other goods from the ACORN Food Hub  to stock their farmstand.

“It’s a no brainer; just having the one spot to source from allows us to see and source more products than we’d be able to on our own,” Keith said. “It allows us to access a much wider range of products and from producers, farmers who are still local but just logistically we can’t get to them and they can’t get to us.”

The pair also purchases items for their family. Keith said the hub offers a convenient way to access things like bulk produce and dried herb mixes that pair well with the chicken and geese Flatlander Farm raises.

Perks said ACORN is excited that schools are showing up at the Food Hub.

And it’s nice to see that community members have grown to a steady 25% of Food Hub sales, she added. Because the Hub sells in bulk, it is not geared for a single family. But groups of families can come together and self-organize a bulk buying club (that’s already happening), or a family can buy in bulk for a special event.

But for some, like Barbara Saylor Rodgers, it offers an opportunity to split out a portion and offer it to those in need.

Rodgers buys food from the Food Hub not just for her family, but to help stock the food pantry at the Congregational Church in New Haven as part of the monthly “meat and more” events. “I choose to buy as much food as possible from local farmers and opt for organic whenever I can,” Rodgers said. “If I choose to do that for myself, then I’m going to make the same choices about the food I buy for the food shelf — why should I change my standard for anyone else?”

Rodgers typically places orders monthly. She says ACORN posts what’s available on Friday mornings. She’ll log in and place her order for pickup in Middlebury on Wednesday.

Rodgers has a root cellar that functions to store produce and helps extend the shelf life enough to make it possible to work through her family’s portion of the orders each month. She drops deliveries at the church for the Food Hub and often ends up packing their refrigerator with fresh, local vegetables.

“Usually it’s too much for our family to eat on our own, but that’s part of what makes this program perfect for charity,” she says.