The Great Falls Food Hub (GFFH) presents Local Food Matters, a community-collaboration focused on next steps in creating more resilient food infrastructure to sustain farms and healthy, locally sourced food and food products.
Now, with a commercial kitchen, cooler/freezer storage, loading ramp and a pre-development grant to investigate other ways it can serve local farmers and growers, the food hub project is establishing deeper roots with capacity to better engage the public, farmers, growers and food makers/producers.
Please complete your survey by October 30, if possible. And, no later than November 3.
Our priority is to hear from farmers, food producers and restaurateurs, first. Then, we’ll be reaching out into the community for input that will further shape, mold and inspire what happens next.
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Please take the Farmer, Grower, Food Producer/Maker and Restaurateur Survey.
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Feed your hunger for community resilience with an evening of local food tastings, film shorts, resources & conversations that matter.
This 2-hour gathering at the Bellows Falls Opera House (Lower Theater) includes delicious, locally sourced tastings, a few inspiring shorts by food-focused, film-maker Graham Meriwether, and a handful of facilitated listening stations where your ideas, visions, concerns & insights as a grower, food producer/maker and community member can be shared. We want to learn more about the needs of our area’s farmers, homesteaders, food makers/producers and restaurateurs. And, since you feed so many, let this be a night where WE FEED YOU!
Featuring the following local food makers in the Great Falls Region:
Jamaican Jewelz Meat Pies, VT
Dumplings from The Dumpling Nest, VT
Tossed Salad and Veggies from Bascom Farms, NH
Roasted Veggie Salad from Smokin’ Bowls, VT
Pumpkin Profiteroles by Grandview Gourmet, VT
Herbal Tea from Nomad Farms, VT
Assorted New Hampshire Cheeses & Crackers, NH
Pumpkin Pies from Saxy Chef, NH
Table Decor by Pete’s Farm Stand, NH
Local Food Matters: Tastings, Shorts & Resilience-Building Conversations
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to connect with the local food community!
RSVP at EventBrite
For Immediate Release
October 2025
LOCAL FOOD MATTERS FEEDS COMMUNITY-COLLABORATION:
A Feasibility Study for Growers and Food Makers Begins in the Great Falls Region*
The Great Falls Food Hub (GFFH) and Great River Cooperative (GRC) announce the launch of Local Food Matters, a community-collaboration focused on next steps in creating more resilient food infrastructure to sustain farms and healthy, locally sourced food and food products. Now, with a commercial kitchen, cooler/freezer storage, a loading ramp and a pre-development grant to investigate other ways it can serve local farmers and growers, the project is establishing deeper roots with capacity to better engage the farmers and food makers.
A seed that was originally planted by a Post Oil Solutions group in 2009 and furthered by South Eastern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA) and other volunteers for almost a decade, The Great Falls Food Hub opened in 2019 and is among the many shoots of the initial local food system seeds that were planted through potlucks, education and pre-covid community building conversations.
Educational programs in schools, including hands-on work in gardens and improved access to local food in the region are among some of the results that sprouted from the original Great Falls Food Hub seeds.
Now, with a physical space on the corner of Depot/Island Streets, abutting the Bellows Falls Train Station, the Great Falls Food Hub’s facility is being utilized by food producers/manufacturers like Smokin’ Bowls, C&K Foods, 7 Balls Brewing and while Finallie Ferments, Rolling 802 Smoke and Ocreemo grew out of the space, it exemplifies how the space incubates new business ideas. Exploring whether or not more shared processing equipment, expanded storage/manufacturing facilities, marketing, distribution and/or cooperative support systems are needed by farmers and food producers is one of the main focal points of Local Food Matters surveys, focus groups and gatherings.
In June 2024, the community group that had been working toward the development of the Great River Cooperative (GRC) passed the project off to a new Board of Directors in hopes it would have a better chance for success. Both the GRC and GFFH are now sponsored by Sustainable Valley Group, a regional non-profit organization committed to building a sustainable local economy through education, job expansion and sustainable business development.
Funding for this public engagement program is through a pre-development grant examining the feasibility of different ideas and proposed projects that could bring economic benefit to small farms and local businesses. The aim is to get needed information to help assess and prioritize what matters most to specific groups in the community and see how they might be better served. Currently, the Great Falls Food Hub helps the local economy by reducing production/storage costs for food producers while adding revenue to the local tax base.
Now thru November in Vermont and New Hampshire, the following public engagement team members will be sparking conversations with owners of farms, restaurateurs, makers of products that use local ingredients and others invested in improving local food system resilience: the previous manager of the Greater Falls Farmer’s Market Janice Leary-Jones, Farmer and former USDA NRCS conservationist Donna Bascom and Nomad Farms Owner Juila Etter.
Questions will be asked to gather information about priority needs, shared concerns/challenges, emergency preparedness, community food storage/production facilities, access to/distribution of locally sourced products that can be efficiently produced in our region for economic benefit to all. In addition to growers and food producers, the project will engage those who operate food shelves and serve people with limited food access.
Social/Food entrepreneur Richard Berkfield will be serving as a Local Food Matters project advisor, weaving together his past involvement with the Post Oil Solutions Great Falls Food Hub alongside his food distribution/food access knowledge as an advocate for thriving local food ecosystems in Southern Vermont.
Other Local Food Matters contributors include Rockingham Development Director Gary Fox (also an original participant of the Great Falls Food Hub), Strategic Advisor Robbie Mahrou, Graphic Designer Aleta Coursen and Community Organizer Marcella Eversole.
Together, they partially represent the east and west side of the great river and the northern and southern ends of the Great Falls Region.
* The Great Falls Region includes towns and surrounding areas of Springfield, Rockingham, Bellows Falls, Saxton’s River, Athens, Grafton, Westminster and Putney in Vermont; and, Westmorland, Charlestown, Alstead and Walpole in New Hampshire. This land-based, farmer-first initiative encourages all who are impacted by local food systems to join this collaborative effort to improve them.
Focus Groups & Round Tables
Evening time TBD
Focus groups & round tables are scheduled for Farmers and Food Makers on Wednesday Nov 5 @ at Harlows Farm Stand in Vermont and Monday Nov 17 in Charlestown, New Hampshire. Evening Time TBD.
A survey for local growers and producers/restaurateurs is available online for completion by October 30, if possible. And, November 3 at the latest.
A survey for the whole community that includes issues around food access will be added, and available online in November.
Past Media LinksReformer Article: Great Falls Food Hub opens in Bellows Falls, 2019
