LIBERTY — “The place is built and looks beautiful,” Steve White, Sullivan County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Chief Executive Officer said. “We are currently in negotiation with an operator so we can be up and running soon. It has been very difficult to find an operator to believe in this like we do. We need someone to help gather and deliver all these orders coming to the food hub.”

The Catskills Food Hub has been in the works in Sullivan County for close to three years. The hub, once up and running, says it will enable local farmers and food producers to have better access to their customers. When finalized, the hub will be able to provide the important transportation between the farmers and potential buyers.

The location that will be used for the Catskills Food Hub was once the proposed location for a red meat facility that never came to fruition. The building is perched on a hill off of Willow Lane overlooking Route 17 and the wastewater treatment plant in Liberty.

“For years this place was the red meat facility but we could not find an operator, maybe people thought it wasn't a viable business,” added White.

According to White, the IDA repurposed the project to be a food hub instead. “We never stopped working on the Food Hub because we [IDA] think it's good for the county. We saw a need and we wanted to help the agriculture business,” White said.

The IDA recently hired a director for the project, Cat Wilson, who was a chef, a podcaster and had, at one time, a Youtube cooking show called, ‘Cat's Catskill Cooking'.

The Sullivan County IDA, Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development (HVADC) and Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County (CCE) are working together to find support for the project in order to develop a network of hyper local distribution locations that will supplement the regional food transportation and distribution in the county.

In fact, the Executive Director of HVADC Todd Erling, sits on the food hub board.

Additionally, CCE, according to Communications and Diversity Manager Nicole Slevin, will help in providing technical assistance to farms and agricultural-related businesses, including the food hub, around potential business models and financing options.

“We assisted in the development of start-up organizational policies and committees. Currently, we provide farms with training and support in wholesale readiness and scaling up production in order to be able to benefit from a local aggregation and distribution operation such as the food hub,” said Slevin.

“The food hub provides another market opportunity for Sullivan County farms and food producers and will potentially relieve some of the time and financial burdens associated with sales and delivery for participating farms,” added Slevin. “The food hub can also help to further CCE's Farm to School project by connecting local producers with school districts in the county.”

Part of the funding for this project came from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Business Enterprise Grant for $220,000 and USDA Rural Business Grant in amount of $90,000.

According to White, all the money from the USDA has been spent as of July 6 for the construction of the food hub which now supports coolers, work stations and vehicles.