Our People
Our Suppliers – who are they?
We aim to support local producers and small local food shops to find an alternative route to the local market. We don’t insist on organic registration, but we do need to see soil-friendly, high-welfare production methods with minimal wastage and packaging.
Most of our range is sourced locally, with about 30 suppliers offering, fruit and vegetables, meat, bread and other baked goods, preserves and honeys, eggs, butter, soaps, syrups and herbal teas. All are based in the Forest of Dean or very close by. Some produce in small quantities in domestic kitchens or smallholdings, supplementing other incomes or as a hobby. Others are much bigger based on farms or in commercial kitchens and rely on sales to pay themselves and their employees.
For some products, customers want a good range to choose from, and some require specialist storage and packing facilities we don’t have, but we have 3 very good local independent shops who are happy to supply us. This means we can supply a good range of artisan cheeses as well as milk, yoghurts and packaged teas, and that way we help keep our local independent shops going.
Finally we have our suppliers from further afield, offering products grown in other parts of the UK, and overseas. Our organic vegetable wholesaler supplies those fruits we have come to regard as staples and tops up our vegetable offer when local supplies run short.
Our dried, packaged and tinned goods come from:
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Essentials, a cooperative wholesaler based in Bristol
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Hodmeddod, who promote UK grown beans and pulses
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Healthy Oils - specialists in buying mediterranean goods straight from farmers and small cooperatives in Greece and Spain.
Our household cleaning products are UK made in Northamptonshire.
Why not browse through our shop to find out more about the huge range of produce we have on offer?
Are you a local producer? Might you be interested in supplying through the Hub? We have a growing list of members who are actively engaged in supporting local food - the perfect audience for your products.
As a producer or supplier you will:
Be able to market your produce or events via our website, Facebook page and weekly member’s newsletter
Have access to our full distribution network.
Set the sale price of all your produce
Have access to our customer base for market research and feedback.
If you are a local producer and are interested in supplying through the Hub, we have a growing list of members that are actively engaged in supporting local food - the perfect audience for your products.
As a producer you will:
Our workers and volunteers.
We’re a worker’s co-op, registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a limited not-for-profit company.
Big decisions get made at our monthly meeting, which is made up of the people who are deeply involved – the worker’s co-op itself. Small decisions get made by the people on the ground. How to tell the difference? If someone feels that a decision is too big for them to make alone, they ask for advice. No bosses, no supervisors.
Some people get paid for their work for the Hub, and some people volunteer their time by helping with our packs, or make other contributions, like being a pick-up point. For some volunteer roles there is a 10% discount on orders.
If you want to talk to us about volunteering, get in touch today.
If you want to join the co-op, you can come to one of our monthly meetings and see how we do things, if you come regularly and join the co-op you’ll become a “director” of the company.
"I love the Food Hub. Not just because I can choose the amount of fruit and veg I want or because the choice of organics goes far beyond what any shop offers; and not because organic tinned foods are on offer as well as herbs, dry goods and even bird food; and not even because their prices are fair and reasonable and that the weekly newsletter reminds me it’s time to order while informing me of interesting facts about the farming year or a relevant program on the radio. And it’s not simply because the theoretical importance of buying local for a multitude of reasons is put into practice. It’s because of all of these reasons. Which makes the Food Hub a unique and principled enterprise. And so thank you to all who run and contribute to it."
Caroline Moore Dec 23
