The Food Hub Market: Combating Food Insecurity at UBC The work of: ainsley Morrow, Ava Mcadam-beder, Jaida sanada, piper henderson, rebeca trevino

The Student Director of the Food Hub Market, Kaitlin Wu, explains that the Food Hub Market is for anyone who may be feeling the pressures of balancing food with other costs of living, including upper-year students and UBC staff. “Everybody could use a little bit of assistance with saving money right now, and the numbers really show it. So when we first opened in October, I think we were doing about like, $200 of sales a day, and now we're up to $2000 of sales a day of at-cost food.”

The idea for the Food Hub Market was born after a group of UBC psychology students did research surrounding the stigmas around accessing food on campus. The findings of their project concluded that students were much more likely to access food support resources when they were paying for low-cost groceries rather than getting free groceries at a food bank. From there, a group of students teamed up with UBC Food Services to launch a 9-week pilot project in early 2022 that provided low-cost foods. After seeing the success of the pilot launch, the Food Hub Market was officially launched this year as a fully student-led, priced at-cost grocery store.

Kaitlin was brought in as a co-op student to begin curating the space in September of 2022. “Being a student, I had a lot of opinions on food access and what we wanted to actually see in the space which was more like, fresh produce and high-quality products, for like the lowest quality price, so we switched our model from low cost to at-cost, meaning that all of the food we present in our space is sold for the same price that we purchase it for.” Kaitlin was given the responsibility of designing the layout of the space and creating partnerships with local vendors, which she described as a complex process.

“Because we're not for profit, and it was just confusing for vendors to see like, what we were trying to do at the space. But the whole point is to make food as accessible and affordable as possible and to reduce stigma for accessing it, so our model is quite different from like the food bank, where it's more like an emergency benefit for people to just access free food. Instead, we’re trying to look at food security as like a long-term, sustainable solution, so our space is that where we're trying to help people save money long-term, so that they won't fall into the category of being food insecure, or need to access those emergency benefits.”

Community food banks are commonly proposed as a response to fight food insecurity on university campuses; however, as Kaitlin mentions, “it's more of a band-aid solution”, unable to address the root causes of the issue. According to the Meal Exchange’s Hungry for Knowledge Report, food banks on campuses are “often solely funded through student unions and rely heavily on food donations, which limits their capacity to provide both the amount and quality of food students need.” They also found that only 16.8% of food-insecure students reported accessing their campus food bank. This can be due to students not being made aware of the service, or low rates of usage due to the stigma associated with going to a food bank.

Ian, a Ph.D. student and a new customer, says that it's hard to come across grocery stores like this one that are suitable on a student budget, and points out the disparities between the grocery store selections on campus. “I don't really understand what the distinctions are that lead to those vast differences in price ranges at different places.”

Kaitlin explains what makes the Food Hub Market able to function differently than other stores on campus, describing their system as a “hybrid model” between the students and the university. So although it’s student-led, UBC Food Services provides support in connecting with vendors such as Fresh Point and Buy Low Foods to get cheaper prices for products. UBC Food Services was also part of the reason why Kaitlin was able to curate the space quickly, which they occupy rent free. Having 55 volunteers involved with the space allows them to keep prices even lower.

With community being a driving force of the space, Kaitlin credits the approximate 300 students who pass through the Food Hub Market daily. A Food Hub Market regular, Andrea, enjoys coming to the market since the products are both affordable and healthy. “The majority of the options are not very affordable for students,” she says, when addressing food prices around campus. Other subjects of our interviews described other stores on campus having, “wild prices” and described the overpriced costs as “garbage.”

Andrea emphasizes that pricing plays a “very big” role in her shopping decisions, especially with the surge of grocery costs. “It's such a big cost change from the last few years given the pandemic and everything else worldwide, it's understandable, but at the same time it's also really hard, especially as a student,” explains Andrea.