1

Agricultural 

Marketing 

Service

February 2015

Building A Food Hub From the 

Ground Up: 

A Facility Design Case Study of Tuscarora 

Organic Growers 
Preferred citation

Barham, Jim, and Fidel Delgado, Building A Food Hub From the Ground Up: A Facility Design Case Study of 

Tuscarora Organic Growers. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service, February 2015. 

Web. <http://dx.doi.org/10.9752/CSG206.02-2015>

Contact

For more information, contact Fidel Delgado at (202) 720-8562 or Fidel.Delgado@ams.usda.gov. 

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Building A Food Hub From 

the Ground Up: 

A Facility Design Case Study of 

Tuscarora Organic Growers

Jim Barham—USDA Rural Development

Fidel Delgado— USDA Agricultural Marketing Service
ii 
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Introduction

As part of USDA’s commitment to supporting the 

development and growth of food hubs, it often 

responds to inquiries from food hub planners and 

operators requesting technical assistance on food 

warehouse layout and design, facility management 

and operations, and physical volume capacities. 

In an effort to provide food hub stakeholders 

with on-the-ground examples of how food hubs 

manage distribution infrastructure, USDA worked 

with Tuscarora Organic Growers, an established 

producer cooperative in Pennsylvania, to document 

the stages of development of its aggregation and 

distribution warehouse. This document describes the 

cooperative’s solutions to warehouse layout, design, 

and function, and the associated costs of equipment 

and labor to gain the space capacity for handling 

certain amounts and types of product, with the 

hope that these insights will assist both new and 

expanding food hubs in making decisions about 

infrastructure investments. 

Background 

Tuscarora Organic Growers (TOG) is a producerowned cooperative that aggregates, distributes, 

and markets USDA-certified organic fresh produce 

on behalf of its members to restaurants, retail 

outlets, farmers markets, and Community Supported 

Agriculture organizations (CSAs) in the metro areas of 

Baltimore, MD, and Washington, DC.1

1 USDA staff visited TOG and its warehouse facility on June 8, 2012, to learn how facility design and function serves the needs 

of the cooperative and its members. Interviews were conducted with Jim Crawford, the founder and president of TOG Cooperative, 

and Jeff Taylor, the general manager, on site, with follow-up telephone and e-mail conversations between February and May 2014.

History

TOG was started in 1988 in Hustontown, PA, by Jim 

Crawford, the owner of New Morning Farm, to take 

advantage of the growing demand from restaurants 

in the District of Columbia for locally grown and 

organic fresh produce. Since Crawford could not 

meet this demand on his own, he recruited farmers 

in his area to join him in establishing a producer 

cooperative. TOG has grown from three farmer 

members and a part-time manager in 1988 to 44 

farmer members (about half of whom are Amish) 

with four full-time staff and 12 to 18 part-time and 

seasonal employees. TOG also buys from about 20 

non-members annually. The majority of the farmer 

members live within 50 miles of the facility, and the 

majority of buyers are within 150 miles of the facility. 

Markets and Sales

TOG currently offers 1,200 stock keeping units 

(SKUs) of produce items to its customers. Half of 

its sales revenue is from restaurants and retailers, 

such as MOM’s organic markets, Whole Foods, and 

food retail cooperatives, with the remaining half 

being split evenly between institutional foodservice 

buyers, produce distributors, buying clubs, and TOG 

members (seven or eight TOG members buy produce 

regularly from the cooperative to sell at their farm 

stands, farm stores, or farmers markets). Seventyfive percent of TOG’s sales revenue goes back to the 

farmer members, with the remaining 25 percent 

being retained by the co-op to cover management 

expenses, such as production planning, storage, 

sales, and transportation costs. In 2013, TOG’s 

annual gross sales from products grown by TOG 

farmer members were $3.1 million; farmer members 

received approximately $2.3 million from the coop. The organization also generated an additional 

$1 million in annual gross sales in 2013 from nonmember farmers. 

Food Hub Services

TOG carries out five primary food hub functions on 

behalf of its members and non-member suppliers: 

1. Distribution and Marketing. TOG offers its 

members effective sales and delivery services 

to ensure they have access to a consistent 

and profitable market for their products.
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1. Production Coordination. TOG management 

and farmer members negotiate an agreement 

in advance of planting to determine who will 

be growing certain products for the upcoming 

season based on market demand. There 

is no written contract—farmer members 

make a good-faith effort to meet their supply 

commitments, and TOG management makes 

a good-faith effort to sell their products on 

their behalf. 

2. Quality Control. TOG members are 

responsible for packing products on their 

farms; TOG management inspects all products 

delivered by farmers to ensure they meet the 

quality standards expected by their buyers. 

TOG management retains the right to refuse 

any product from farmer members that does 

not meet the agreed-upon specifications.

3. Group purchasing. TOG purchases inputs 

such as boxes, packaging labels, pest control 

materials, fertilizer, and starter plants in bulk 

at a substantially lower cost than can be 

realized by individual farmers.

4. Knowledge sharing. Farmer members 

get together at least twice a year to share 

production and agriculture-related knowledge 

with each other. 

Distribution Logistics

Since its inception, TOG has relied on its farmer 

members to sort and pack on-farm, using industrystandard boxes and farm-identifying labels provided 

at cost by TOG. With few exceptions, farmer 

members are also expected to deliver products to 

the co-op facility. Buyers of TOG’s products receive 

a price list and have the opportunity to submit 

orders twice a week; orders placed on Friday are 

delivered on the following Tuesday, and orders 

placed on Tuesday are delivered on the following 

Friday. TOG uses anywhere from one to four trucks 

on delivery days. The trucks are rented from Jim 

Crawford, founder and president of TOG Cooperative, 

who owns a fleet of six refrigerated straight trucks. 

Crawford rents his trucks to the cooperative at cost, 

which helps TOG save transportation expenses and 

enables Crawford to deploy his fleet of trucks and 

receive compensation when they are not needed 

for his own farm business. To use the trucks most 

efficiently, TOG also offers refrigerated freight service 

to those farmer members who produce perishable 

products like eggs and meat that are not sold through 

the cooperative. 

TOG also works regularly with a trucking company 

that maintains a warehouse in Jessup, MD, 

between Baltimore and Washington, and makes 

the final delivery to some of the TOG customers. 

This company handles about a third of TOG’s 

current deliveries. 

Example of farm-identifying label provided by TOG.
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Food Hub Facility and 

Operations

The TOG facility and its grounds are owned by the 

cooperative. They are next to Jim Crawford’s New 

Morning Farm in the rolling hills of Fulton County, 

PA. The topography of the facility site is severe. On 

the east side, the facility abuts the property line; on 

the west and north boundaries, the land drops off 

at a steep angle into the flood plain of a river. The 

facility is only approachable from the southeast, via 

a winding, part-gravel road 1.8 miles from a paved 

county road. Although the entry to the TOG facility 

is large enough to handle a conventional semi-truck 

and trailer, there is limited space for maneuvering 

trucks. 

The facility building itself is a wood-frame structure 

on a concrete slab that was built in phases over 

a 20-year period as needs changed and financing 

became available. The overall layout of the facility 

reflects its phased growth, during which rooms were 

added as needed. The facility still uses available 

space efficiently. The structure has six loading 

docks without shelters but with canopies over the 

overhead roll-up doors. 

From 1988 to 1991, TOG did not have a facility but 

used excess storage and trucking capacity from Jim 

Crawford’s farm. In 1992, when its membership had 

doubled, TOG decided to rent a facility about 8 miles 

from its present location. Due to limited staffing 

and the difficulty of providing adequate oversight 

of business operations from a distance, TOG 

management decided in 1993 to relocate the facility 

to the property adjacent to Jim Crawford’s farm. 

Phase One – 1993

In 1993, TOG hired a new manager. At that time, six 

members, including Jim Crawford, invested about 

$7,000 to purchase a used refrigerated trailer and 

compressor that was incorporated into a shed built 

around it. The first phase included refrigerated 

storage, a loading area, and office space. Additional

equipment and materials were either purchased or 

donated by members on an as-needed basis. The 

initial structure was a wood frame on a concrete slab 

totaling 1,133 square feet, with refrigeration capacity 

of 374 square feet (from the recycled refrigerated 

trailer). In 1994, TOG was officially incorporated as 

a producer cooperative with 14 farmer members. 

All of the members who had invested in the original 

structure were paid back with interest from 

co-op proceeds.

Phase one plans, 1993.
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Phase Two - 1998

In 1998, the co-op raised $50,000 from the 

community and customers to finance additions to its 

facility, which was used to construct the front part 

of the present facility. This phase of development 

included the addition of three loading docks, more 

office space, an additional walk-in cooler, and an 

enclosed staging area. The cooler was purchased 

used and was incorporated into the facility, thereby 

expanding cooler capacity of the facility to 969 

square feet, a 160-percent increase. 

Phase two plans, 1998.
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Phase Three - 2004

With an increase in market demand and more 

farmers joining the cooperative, TOG had expanded 

sufficiently to warrant additional investments in its 

facility. In 2004, the building size was effectively 

doubled with the inclusion of a second enclosed 

dock and two large coolers. The total refrigeration 

area was increased to 3,183 square feet, which 

tripled the available cold storage capacity and also 

provided the multi-temperature zones needed for 

optimal handling of a variety of produce items. The 

cooperative also installed three-phase electrical 

power to support its refrigeration equipment. 

This phase of expansion was financed by two 

loans totaling $180,000 (one from the PA Progress 

Fund and one from a local bank). This phase of 

development marked the first time that TOG relied 

on loans to finance its operations, having relied 

solely on community and member equity to fund its 

operations for the first 16 years of its existence. 

Construction of 2004 addition.

Three-Phase Power

Easy to install, a three-phase electrical service system operates behind the scenes to power highhorsepower electric motors used by fan coil units and compressor motors for commercial-grade 

refrigerant systems and provides a smoother, more balanced power load. Three-phase power is 150 

percent more efficient than a single-phase electrical power supply. Utility companies prefer three-phase 

systems for industrial environments because they require less cabling. 
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Phase three plans, 2004.
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Phase Four – 2011

In 2011, a receiving/shipping cooler for staging 

product was added to the growing business. This 

12-by-56-foot addition added flexibility to operations

for preparations of outgoing shipments and increased

the facility’s total refrigeration capacity to 3,857

square feet. At its present capacity, the facility is 

cold-chain compliant and can handle products in 

four different temperature settings, which ensures 

that TOG’s diversity of products stay at the right 

temperature while in storage . The final phase of 

facility development cost about $60,000, financed by 

TOG sales revenue. 

Phase four plans, 2011.
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Phase four links the original structure with the 2004 

addition, providing consistent cold-chain staging 

protection for incoming and outgoing produce. 

This addition allows TOG to use the “pass-through” 

concept by having incoming products flow from 

the front to the back storing area, and for outgoing 

products to be staged in a controlled-temperature 

environment. 

Tuscarora Organic Growers’ current warehouse facility.
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Facility Costs and Capacities 

Table 1 summarizes the stages of development of 

TOG’s facility and the means by which each stage 

was financed.

Table 1: Summary of Facility Infrastructure and Financing

Year Facility Investment Costs (Financing) Notes

1993

Repurposed refrigerated 

trailer with compressor, 

open shed, office space

$7,000

(Co-op member equity)

Total facility space: 1,133 sq. ft.

Refrigerated space: 374 sq. ft. 

1998

Enclosed staging area, 

three loading docks, 

additional office space, 

walk-in cooler

$50,000

(Customers and co-op 

member equity)

Total facility space: 2,631 sq. ft.

Refrigerated space: 969 sq. ft. 

2004

Second enclosed dock 

and staging area, two 

large coolers, three-phase 

electrical power

$180,000

(Two bank loans)

Total facility space: 5,947 sq. ft.

Refrigerated space: 3,183 sq. ft. 

2011

Additional refrigerated 

space to receive/stage 

product

$60,000

(TOG sales revenue)

Total facility space: 6,621 sq. ft.

Refrigerated space: 3,857 sq. ft. 

Table 2 provides an estimate of the cost of running 

TOG’s current facility.

Table 2: TOG Facility Operational Expenses for 2013

Item/Activity Estimated Annual Expense

Dock and office supplies $10,400

Repairs and maintenance (facility only) $5,500

Utilities $21,200

Delivery (truck rental/gas) $131,300

Labor $452,600

Insurance (general liability) $7,600

General expenses $27,300

Total expenses $655,900
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Facility Capacities

TOG’s current facility has roughly 10,500 square feet 

of total space, about 4,000 square feet of which is 

refrigerated. TOG’s annual gross sales (member and 

non-member) of fresh produce exceeded $4 million 

in 2013. At its current sales volume, the facility is 

meeting the needs of TOG’s operation. During peak 

season (August to October), the facility is at full 

capacity, but because product is usually turned over 

in 2 days, the product flow can be managed so the 

cold chain is maintained and their customers receive 

the freshest product. At times when the facility is 

exceeding capacity, it has been able to add another 

delivery day to move products through the facility 

more rapidly. Even with continued growth, TOG 

believes that it can figure out new ways to optimize 

the space without the need—at least for now—to 

build additional space. 

Conclusion

This case study describes how a food hub can 

“bootstrap” an operation, relying on community 

equity to launch a lean startup. Growing in an 

organic way as demand increased and changing the 

scale of operations when necessary helped to build 

a thriving business. TOG never overextended its risk 

threshold and has made infrastructure investments 

that matched its growth. The cooperative ownership 

business structure has enabled a high measure 

of member control over investment decisions. 

Since the members are also the suppliers for the 

aggregation and distribution activities, there is good 

coordination between growth in demand and growth 

in facility scale and operational characteristics. 

TOG has continued to add members and has also 

expanded by purchasing from non-members, always 

accommodating changes with facility expansion. 

This growth pattern has prevented development 

of overcapacity, albeit at the expense of a uniform 

facility design.
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Photo Credits

Tuscarora 

Organic Growers

USDA USDA

USDA Tuscarora 

Organic Growers

Tuscarora 

Organic Growers