The Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative (WFHC) has created a new way for Wisconsin farmers to reach rural schools with limited access to locally grown and produced food—by delivering their products directly to their doorstep.
The farmer-led cooperative, a 2024 Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub Innovation Collaborative grantee, developed the idea for Tend & Table boxes as a way to open up new markets in school food programs in the northern and northwestern parts of the state.
Transporting food to rural schools and communities takes resources that many small farmers and food producers simply don’t have—and a challenge that WFHC works to address.
“We found a big hole in North Central; it takes six hours to drive up,” said Tara Roberts-Turner, WFHC general manager. “We wanted to make a more sustainable route to allow them to get what they wanted locally.”
The need to open up food access has become more urgent in the past few years, especially as local farmers have experienced recent losses in institutional food contracts.
“We were looking to create a new market to support more than 100 local producers,” Roberts-Turner said. “We brought them to the table to decide what items they had in surplus that were seasonably relevant and would last in the fridge.”
They began developing the concept of a shipment of food grown and produced by local farmers and food producers, focusing first on opportunities within local school food programs.
The trial run for boxes was in May 2025, with a box that featured ingredients for a USDA-standardized school meal recipe—a bean tostada.
In partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, the WFHC-prepared Tend & Table boxes for food pantries, schools, and early childhood education centers across the state. They delivered a total of 10 boxes to early childhood education centers and 17 boxes to schools—many of which gave the tostada recipe excellent reviews.
Learn about the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative’s Super Transport Collaborative, another way the Innovation Hub grantee connects schools with local farms and food businesses.