Farm Link Hawaiʻi 2022 Community Impact Report
Dear Farm Link supporter,
At this point in the new year, our brains have gravitated to what lies ahead: strategies for growth, tactics for how we’ll get there, and all the orchestration required to make those plans a reality.
Before we get too swept up in 2023, I want to take a moment to reflect on the past year and celebrate how you’ve helped support our local food system. Here’s a snapshot of how your purchases added up over the past 12 months, and what they mean for our island community.
In 2022, you and your fellow Farm Link customers made it possible for us to:
- Purchase $1.3 million in local produce and other products from Hawaiʻi farmers, ranchers, and food makers across the state. To put that in perspective, that means 100,632 free-range and pasture-raised eggs, 3,685 pounds of grass-fed ground beef, and 8,167 pounds of bananas…just to name a few of our top-selling items!
- Serve 3,200 Oʻahu households with convenient, fresh, healthy, locally produced food.
- Offer free delivery to 400 families receiving SNAP-EBT (federal nutrition) benefits, ensuring everyone has affordable access to good food, no matter where they live.
- Donate 10,200 pounds of food to Aloha Harvest, our food rescue partner. This figure represents edible but no longer sellable products that we donate, as well as 515 customer purchases of Donate A Produce Box.
- Develop new products like our exclusive banana bread, made by La Tour Bakehouse using our too-ripe-to-sell-but-just-right-for-baking bananas.
- Partner with the Waiʻanae Coast Comprehensive Health Center to support their Produce Prescription public health programs. With this debut partnership under our belts, we’re pursuing similar partnerships with other community health organizations.
We’ve got some other big things in the works for 2023, and I look forward to sharing them with you over the coming months.
We are humbled and inspired by the ongoing support from folks like you. Every time you choose to shop with us, you’re helping to create a more robust local food economy, strengthen our food security, and share the wealth throughout our community. From the bottom of our hearts, mahalo for your unwavering commitment to local food, and to our shared mission.
Claire Sullivan
CEO
Farm Link Hawaiʻi