The Beaver County Food Hub is a community-built solution to documented challenges facing the food system in Beaver County, and a partnership between Crop + Kettle, Ambridge Borough, and RiverWise.

Thirteen communities in the county are designated food deserts by the USDA, despite Beaver County being home to over 500 farms. More than 22,000 residents depend on SNAP benefits, yet the vast majority cannot use them to purchase locally grown food. At the same time, over 80 percent of produce grown in Beaver County is exported to surrounding markets, leaving residents without meaningful access to food grown in their own communities. 

The Beaver County Food Hub is a fully integrated facility designed to address these challenges. The project includes:

• State-of-the-art training kitchens delivering 30,000+ workforce training hours per year
• Professional commissary kitchens supporting food entrepreneurs
• A food business incubator launching an estimated six new businesses annually
• A permanent, year-round SNAP-accessible indoor farmers market
• Indoor agricultural space for four-season growing and education
• Community event space for civic and educational programming 

Together, these programs will serve more than 10,000 community members annually and generate an estimated $18 million in annual economic output, based on economic modeling conducted by the University of Pittsburgh’s University Center for Social and Urban Research. 

This project is ready to build. Of the $6.815 million total project cost, $4.115 million (60% of the total cost) has already been secured through state, local, philanthropic, and federal sources. We are now submitting a 2027 Federal Appropriation Request for the remaining $2.7 million, the final piece needed to fully fund this project. 

The Hub will be built on a former brownfield site in Ambridge and is projected to catalyze more than $100 million in future investment in downtown Ambridge and beyond. The project will also create 141 jobs and expand access to food, support food entrepreneurs, and grow a regional food economy. 

Sign this petition to show your support for the Beaver County Food Hub.

To learn more, visit https://beavercountyfoodhub.com/