Skagit Food Distribution Update

As the Co-op continues its work on food security in Skagit Valley, our partnership with Skagit Food Distribution Center has also grown. We’re happy to share that we donated nearly $16,000 to the Distribution Center in 2023, including over 2,250 pounds of food! It’s great to help provide food for our friends and neighbors in Skagit while also supporting the ongoing, impactful work of the Food Distribution Center.

Funding for Local Purchasing

In the fall of 2023, Community Action’s Skagit Food Distribution Center (SFDC) received a We Feed Washington Grant through the WSDA to fund local purchasing for two years. In addition to the We Feed Washington grant, SFDC was also awarded a two-year Farm to Food Pantry grant and allocated funds by WSDA through their Local Food Purchasing agreement as the lead agency for state food assistance programming in Skagit County.

These funds have allowed the Center to purchase 238,643 pounds of food from 36 local producers and food businesses since July 2023. In addition to those purchases, SFDC received 79,601 pounds of donated products from 18 local producers, 12 of whom the center also purchases from. Products include meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables, and fruit from producers of varying sizes throughout Skagit County. SFDC is purchasing products on a weekly basis to ensure a reliable supply of food to the food banks it serves.

The food purchased with these funds is distributed to 11 food banks and 1 meal program throughout Skagit and San Juan counties. In addition to the food banks and meal programs, the Center is also partnering with the Puget Sound Food Hub to purchase produce boxes featuring local fruit and vegetables that are distributed each month to 230 home-bound seniors in Skagit County who are enrolled in the Center’s Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), a program of WSDA. SFDC is proud to provide these seniors with fresh produce in addition to the box of shelf stable commodities each month. In 2024 and 2025, SFDC intends to keep working with local producers they purchased from in 2023 and continue to expand its network of farmers in the Skagit Valley.

Food Waste Prevention- Viva Farms

The Skagit Food Distribution Center is extremely diligent with its food orders, but also has a solid food waste prevention plan in place on the rare occasion they have a surplus of food, thanks to a partnership with Viva Farms.

First and foremost, the purchasing SFDC does each week with grant funding is intentional, so they only buy what the food banks can distribute in a week to avoid creating waste. And because they work with multiple food banks, they can easily reallocate products if one food bank can’t use something but another one can.

They prioritize purchasing products that are fresh and have long shelf lives if they need to be stored longer. This ensures that by the time products reach the food bank customer, they are still in good shape.

However, if SFDC receives products that are close to spoiling and they’re unable to distribute them in a timely manner, they work with Viva Farms to compost it for their new incubator farmers along with a few other local farmers for pig food. These outlets avoid any food going to the landfill for a closed-loop food system right here in Skagit Valley.