Halifax Regional Food Hub aims to make it easier for local food to be bought and sold

Andrew Lam · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 28, 2026 9:57 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

A new non-profit co-operative in Halifax is working to make it easier for wholesale buyers to purchase local food and for producers and farmers to sell their produce.

The Halifax Regional Food Hub connects Nova Scotia producers to businesses and institutions in the municipality.

It does so by providing a single online system where organizations like restaurants can purchase local food. It also handles logistics like deliveries and bringing food from different producers to the food hub’s warehouse in Dartmouth.

The non-profit’s executive director says the service removes a heavy administrative burden from farmers.

“Their work is better spent … in the field on their farms, instead of being stuck in traffic doing deliveries,” said Eli Milton. “That’s where we come in [to help] facilitate those sales.”

The food hub works primarily with small to medium-size producers who often have limited time and capacity to market products and complete other administrative work, the organization says in a news release.

The founder and co-owner of the Wooden Monkey restaurants in the Halifax area calls the food hub a “game changer” for restaurants.

“When we first started to try to find farm-fresh food, it was really difficult,” said Lil MacPherson. “There’s no supplier list, so we had to really go out and find the farmers [and] pick up a lot of stuff.”

Now, buying local will be much easier for restaurants, MacPherson said.

One of the food hub’s goals is to strengthen Nova Scotia’s local food system. Milton said that’s important in light of economic uncertainty created by things like U.S. tariffs.

“When we spend money in our local economy, it circulates within our economy,” she said.

The federal government recently released a national food security strategy that promises a 10-year, $1-billion fund aimed at establishing and expanding food hubs and terminals across Canada.

Milton applauds that investment but is watching to see if money will go to smaller non-profit groups and not only larger organizations that are already operating.

• More stories from Halifax Regional Municipality

“I think we’ll have a wider reach if we support … smaller non-profits as well, [because] they’re so much more connected within their communities,” she said.

The Nova Scotia government provided $850,000 in funding to the Halifax Regional Food Hub to help with its development and launch.

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MacPherson said having more local food infrastructure, like processing plants and canning facilities, makes the province more resilient to supply chain disruptions.

“A city and a province and a country that can feed themselves is resilient and strong,” she said.

“Especially with climate change happening, we have to be able to come up with our own solutions here in Nova Scotia and depend on our own people.”

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