What is the Roots Food Hub?
Our Model
At the moment, the Roots Food Hub is an "everything" hub: we work with small and micro-producers to buy their products; we store those products at our mini-facility at the KKV Wellness Center and, in some cases, provide packaging services; we transport the product to a handful of retail sites; and we do the reselling with little or no price mark-up. It's an intensive job, and since we've elected to remain a non-profit, not a financially rewarding one. But by prioritizing a fair price for our farmers, and a fair price for our customers, we're working to create a system that values local, cultural, sustainable foods and values equal access to those foods.
Our Mission
The Roots Food Hub strives to create partnerships with producers of cultural foods, particularly Pacific staple foods such as cassava, breadfruit, kalo, and banana. The current Hawaii foodscape has a dearth of accessible and affordable cultural staples. These foods, as the deepest signifiers of identity, memory, and pride for our Kalihi population, are also the most sorely missed. Though all healthy foods are welcome in our Food Hub, our abiding mission is strengthening farmer capacity to produce cultural staples and to form strong, enduring linkages from those farms to the plates of our community.
Our Actions
Farm Partners
The Food Hub is currently partnered with nine local farms and small business to provide healthy options to the Kalihi community. Thanks to their tireless labor and committment, the Food Hub is able to provide free-range eggs, fresh poi, local fish, breadfruit, kalo, cassava, banana, leafy greens, and a rainbow of fruits.
Resale
Our primary retail outlet for Food Hub produce is the Roots Mobile Market. Our Food Hub van brings produce directly to community sites, providing a pop-up market experience at health centers, senior centers, community resource centers, and more. The Mobile Market is EBT accessible and poised for expansion. Please visit our Contact Us page if you'd like to become a Mobile Market partner.
Sharing Knowledge
Our collective knowledge forms the basis for all our work. Together, we are gardeners, farmers, story-tellers, cooks, entrepreneurs, healers, builders, chefs, writers, poets, speakers, advocates, seed savers, cultural practitioners, guests, hosts, teachers, students, and more. The Roots Program endeavors to create spaces for people to come together and share their gifts, helping people work together to realize their own resources and efficacy.
Join us at community workdays, cooking and gardening demonstrations, and many more opportunities to gather around the growing and eating of food to share whatever you have to offer.
Image by Allyson Ijima© 2023
PAINA (PArity In Nutrition Access) Gatherings
Once per quarter, Roots hosts a PAINA gathering for our partners in sustainable foodways. Each gathering showcases a culturally significant item of produce such as breadfruit, cassava, and mallungay, bringing people together to share knowledge and stories, try cultural recipes, and discuss the next steps we can take together to improve our food system. We welcome new collaborative partners, whether you work for an agency, grow a farm, or simply care about community.
Decolonizing Diets Dinners
These dinners feature guest speakers on important food-related topics such as genetic modification, seed saving, and the role of bees in our ecosystem. Attendees can mingle with other people who are passionate about issues in food, listen to informed perspectives on momentous topics, and participate in a respectful group discussion afterwards.