Food aggregation is the process of collecting small amounts of produce from multiple small and medium-sized farms into a single, centralized location. It creates a consistent, larger supply of food to meet needs at a larger scale.

Why does CFS provide aggregation and cold storage?

Without aggregation, many small farms would not have access to selling to medium or large institutions. Individual small farms often lack the production volume, accurate availability estimates, and packaging and product consistency requirements that institutional buyers require.

Cold storage plays a crucial role in preserving the quality and safety of harvested produce. However, cold storage is often prohibitively expensive in equipment, maintenance, and energy costs.

How does CFS do aggregation and cold storage?

Three years ago, we realized that to keep up with the fresh produce demand we were creating through our Mobile Farm Markets and partner relationships, and to best serve communities with the produce varieties they most desired, it was critical to shift into an aggregation food hub model, aggregating together small amounts from many small farms to create the supply we need. Our aggregation hub is a 3,000 square foot facility with two large, walk-in cold storage units in the center of Gaithersburg, conveniently located both for our farm partners across the Upcounty region of Montgomery County, as well as for us to reach the communities and partner organizations we serve throughout the county.

• Every week, our farm partners upload what they have available into a custom CFS procurement system.
• CFS uses market data, contract purchase agreements (made over the previous winter), and projections to order produce accordingly for our produce bags, Mobile Farm Markets and wholesale operations. 
• We prioritize purchasing from Montgomery County farms first; once we’ve exhausted our local supply, we expand to purchase produce regionally. 
• Farms drop off our produce orders at the beginning of each week, though we often seek additional produce throughout the week.
• Having 24/7 access to cold storage at CFS’s aggregation hub enables farms to harvest and deliver produce on schedules that work for them. This flexibility is key, given the unpredictable nature of farming. Our cold storage also offers our wholesale clients flexibility in their ordering needs, as many lack cold storage at their locations. Each of our cold storage units is set to a different temperature to help maintain food safety and longevity for families to use over a longer time.
•  Starting as early as Tuesday, produce goes out for Mobile Farm Markets, produce bags for delivery, and wholesale orders. We make additional purchases throughout the week as needed.

Given that small-scale farmers face a completely different set of challenges and needs compared to large-scale farms that sell by the pallet and truckload to large institutions, we offer our farm partners a flexible and tailored approach to partnership, supporting small farms in navigating the challenges they face when selling to an aggregator and meeting each farm “where they are” to fold their smaller volumes into our operations.

Impact:

• Our decision to start the first aggregation facility in Montgomery County worked and has a significant impact on the local food system: not only were we able to source much more produce and buy from more farmers, but aggregating also enabled us to create new sales channels as we reached out to more partners, particularly in the school and healthcare spaces, our two passion points. Today we are the largest buyer of Montgomery County-grown produce in the county, which would not have been possible without aggregation and cold storage capacity.
• By moving into an aggregation model, we were able to more than triple the pounds of produce we bought and distributed, and we were able to serve more than five times the number of families we did pre-aggregation.

	2022 (pre-aggregation)	2024 (post-aggregation)	% increase in services
lbs produce bought and distributed	38,000	140,000	268%
families served	132	674	410%
$ invested in local farms	$100,000	$340,000	240%