Our Story

Created to support the hardworking farmers of Kansas and Missouri

Our Story

Founded by the farmers who own, run and supply it.

The Kansas City Food Hub was founded in 2016 by a group of small farmers who envisioned a local food system that allowed farmers to move their product into restaurants, schools, homes and more. They wanted to feed their communities and promote their belief in sustainable farming for themselves and the next generations.

In addition to integrating local food into the Kansas City Metro Supply Chain, The Kansas City Food Hub focuses on…

Stewardship of the land and its resources
Mentoring of young and emerging farmers
Honest wages for honest work
Collaboration toward food sovereignty
Cooperative production planning, marketing and purchasing of resources

Our small and medium-sized farmers are improving the economic viability of sustainable local agriculture by coordinating year-round production, supporting emerging growers, aggregating product distribution, and bringing farmers and buyers together in a community that benefits all.

Meet the Team

Thomas Smith
Chief Business Officer

Thomas (he/him) is a recent transplant from Boston, where he was serving as the Director of Operations for the Concerned Citizens of Randolph, a Boston area non-profit where he built a grass-roots food access program that saw three weekly free grocery distributions in multiple suburbs and weekly hot meal programs within the city, while managing a vast network of local churches and volunteer organizations to achieve each program. He is looking forward to continuing that food systems work in Kansas City, with a focus on building that ever-important community connection to local agriculture.

Jesse McGinness
Operations Manager

Jesse (he/him) was born in Kansas City and graduated from Park Hill South in 2011. After high school, he left for Lawrence, KS, and worked on a number of independent films and eventually landed at Just Food as their Director of Operations. He quickly learned of just how drastic the food and environmental problems were in our country, so he left for Denver to work for Greenpeace. After travelling all over the country with them, he transitioned into more direct organizing work, working with the KS Dems, MO Jobs with Justice, and several other campaigns, including the We Feed Us program with KC Tenants. Now he is back to organizing food systems and is excited about connecting local people with local food.

Avian Brunkhorst
Outreach Coordinator

Avian’s (they/them) professional background is in landscape architecture & transportation. They decided to leave landscape architecture in March 2025, as they felt a disconnect between the projects they designed and the people who lived in the project sites. They were hired at the KC Food Hub as an Operations Associate, then promoted to Outreach Coordinator in December 2025. Avian is passionate about food access, grassroots organizing, and hiking. They are very excited to grow the KC Food Hub across Kansas & Missouri!

Olive Cooke
Value Chain Coordinator

Olive Cooke (she/her) is a chef, musician, and a community organizer. She worked in restaurants for over 20 years before starting at the Food Hub. Born in Missouri, she lived in New Orleans, where she learned to cook, and then to Oakland, CA, where she learned the beauty of cooking with local produce. She has been working towards opening a worker owned vegan restaurant and is passionate about making the food industry more sustainable and equitable, through building up local food systems and cooperative business practices. She also organizes events like People’s Pride, a grassroots LGBTQ pride celebration, and performs in a few bands.