Hubba Hubbas. The musical.

We've been calling our emerging hub of food hubs in the Great Lakes region the Hubba Hubbas, of course.

Our Hubba group met last week in Chicago. My friend Karen with Fresh Taste has lit the light of this organization and nurtured it. Much good is already underway.

As a professional skeptic, I am startled by my flat out enthusiasm for working with this group, now organizing around the name 'Great Lakes Food Hub Network'

That said, the Hubba Hubbas are now starting to dance. I love this part of enterprise formation. From silence to melody. Something from nothing stuff.

One signature accomplishment of the gathering was our first statement of principles and practices. Best first line of any doc I've signed on to ... 'Assume good will.'


Great Lakes Food Hub Network
Principles and Practices
May 6, 2011

“Assume Good Will”

The Great Lakes Food Hub Network (Hubba Hubba) is a group of food hub practitioners dedicated to collaboratively integrating the values and practices of reciprocity with those of the marketplace. In doing so, we are creating a commons of resources and experience focused on community wealth creation, to which all contribute and from which all may benefit. Community wealth creation requires the implementation of business models that build multiple forms of capital: intellectual, social, financial, individual, political, natural and built.

This implies:

• Basing our dealings with each other on an ethic of sharing as well as individual self-interest
• Conducting ourselves as a learning community, which implies sharing what we learn as we develop new business practices, and organizing ourselves as a group capable of consulting to one another.
• Envisioning our work from the outset as a set of linked initiatives, not solely as individual enterprises

Over time, we commit ourselves to develop methods and technologies that facilitate reciprocity, learning, and the building of multiple forms of capital. These may include:

• Commitment to local sourcing
• Open source IT platforms
• Revolving loan funds
• Shared branding
• Learning journeys and exchanges
• Co-investment
• Business models that involve farmers, workers and communities as co-owners and partners
• Means to connect to similar networks in other regions of the country

We are intentional about expanding the network and will invite others to participate who share the values and commitments described above and who bring skills and resources that will strengthen the network. Our goal is to build a strong Great Lakes network reaching from Minneapolis-St Paul Minnesota to Rochester New York, with the assumption that we will develop relationships with similar networks in other regions of the country. We intend that the work we do will serve and inspire other networks.


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Many thanks to my friend Karen and Fresh Taste for helping seed and nurture our emerging Great Lakes Food Hub Network.

Original hubba hubba post with links to Great Lakes food hub friends.

Underlying hub graphic thanks to atributosurbanos, a project from the Andalusia Center for Contemporary Art