Rutland food hub reopens after remediation; leaders describe packing, processing and year-round market plans

Heidi Lynch, executive director of the Vermont Farmers Food Center in Rutland, told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Feb. 6 that the hub has completed a three-year remediation and is pursuing upgrades to ovens, kitchens, storage and a regional produce packing center to expand year-round capacity for local producers.

“Our mission as an organization is to relocalize the food system through increasing food access, education, and infrastructure,” Lynch said, describing the center’s origins as a farmer-led effort to sustain winter markets and the campus’s later role in pandemic response.

Lynch said the center became an anchor for emergency food distribution during COVID, administering Everyone Eats activity in the Rutland region and processing “over $3,000,000” in food and delivering hundreds of thousands of meals at the program’s height. She described the campus as a former industrial site that required environmental assessment and…