Coastal Foodshed opens a new location in New Bedford

NEW BEDFORD, Mass (WLNE) — New Bedford cut the ribbon on a massive new farmer food hub at the Kilburn Mill Thursday.

The Coastal Foodshed is opening up the new space to allow residents to get fresh, local food.

The new farmer food hub takes up a chunk of the first floor in the Kilburn Mill space, offering a warehouse and freeze space to hold food, as well as retail space for the community.

“So we go out into the community, across the South Coast,” Co-founder and Executive Director Stephanie Perks said. “We source food from our south coast farmers, we bring it back to our food hub and then we distribute that the community in a number of different ways.”

In the last seven years, staff say they’ve sold or distributed nearly 2.7 million dollar’s worth of local food, 

“We sell into the community through farmers markets, we have an online store and do delivery, we also partner with different community nonprofits, and we distribute food for free through different programs.” Perks added.

“For farmers to access underserved markets, there needs to be a way to meet the cost of production and the ability for people to pay,” Board Chair Karen Schwalbe “And so SNAP programs, HIP dollars, farmers market coupons, senior coupons are all part of that. But they can’t be used if the food is not there. And coastal food shed provided that bridge between the farmers and the community.”

The facility officially opened up Thursday morning with the ribbon cutting.