Boundary Community Ventures (BCVA) is a non-profit society that was incorporated in December 2020 in order to develop a Boundary wide Food Hub. The initial 3 large grants for the Food Hub were done through the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB). We are happy to announce the receipt of grant funding from the Province of British Columbia through the Rural Economic Diversification Program (REDIP).
When fully developed, Boundary Food Hub will offer a suite of facilities and services across the Boundary that are focused on commercial food processing to reach retail, commercial and institutional markets. Our first facility is a meat processing facility that is being developed in Rock Creek. Currently, we also own two reefer trailers that are available to rent to safely transport food in the Boundary and beyond.
The current REDIP grant is for planning and design of a shared commercial processing facility in the Grand Forks area. We are working with the same food scientists and business, branding, marketing consultants as for the rest of the Food Hub. The goals of this phase of the project are:
- to work with potential renters of the processing space, to identify specific needs for space, equipment, cooling, freezing and storage
- to contract a building engineer to design and produce specs for the building
- to develop a plan to fund construction
- to develop a business plan for ongoing management and operations of the facility
- at the end of this project, we will be “shovel ready” to apply for future grants.
We will be reaching out to food producers and processors across the Boundary in May. In the meantime, if you have any questions about us or our project, please contact:
Vicki Gee 250 449-8271 or vicki@boundarycommunityventures.ca