7 Northwest Farm Credit Services
Northwest Cooperative, LINC Foods, is a worker- and
farmer-owned food hub in Spokane representing
more than 50 member farms. LINC Foods' wholesale
partners include 37 restaurants, six school districts
and universities in eastern Washington and northern
Idaho, all impacted by COVID-19 shutdowns.
"Right now, Washington State University isn't buying
from us because their dining center is closed," said
Dan Jackson, Sales and Procurement Director at LINC
Foods. "WSU is our second largest customer. Gonzaga
University has been a great partner too, and right now
they're only at 60% of normal sales. To support our
local farmers, we had to pivot quickly to more direct
consumer sales."
The cooperative was already providing a farm-to-table
subscription for consumers called the LINC Box. Stra-
tegically, in their work with wholesale partners, LINC
Foods had the technology they needed for customers
feature story
At the beginning of the season, Merritt, Gretchen
and family chose to reduce their farm store hours –
down to two days a week – using the extra time to
expand the garden. Gretchen took the opportunity
to implement a new online ordering system with
curbside pickup for people who didn't want to come
into the store or shop at a farmers market.
"We'd thought about dabbling in online orders and
this was a great chance to try it," says Gretchen. "If
it didn't work, we could always say it was for the
pandemic and go back to the way we were doing
things before. But we've seen a lot of growth and
we'll probably continue online sales through the
winter. With reduced hours our store sales were
down, but thanks to extra time spent in the garden,
our market sales were up around 25%. We'll take
that as a win."
Local food cooperatives step up
In addition to selling through farmers markets, small
producers often distribute through local food hubs.
This makes it easy for restaurants, institutions
and retail stores to source products from many
farms with one point of contact. The Local Inland
"We'd thought about dabbling in online
orders and this was a great chance to
try it," says Gretchen.
