The following Reno, Lake Tahoe, Truckee, and Nevada local food organizations and businesses are some of our best local food and drink supporters. Below is a list of them, as well as a description of their services with links to each business and organization’s website. 

Great Basin Community Food Co-op

In early 2009, Northern Nevada was in need of a business to increase community access to affordable, sustainable, local, and wholesome food that enriches the health of the local environment and economy. The Great Basin Community Food Co-op was the answer to that need. The Reno food co-op started when a few people got together in a garage and worked together to create the booming business, gathering $4.9 million in annual sales. Customers who had grown to love the fresh food they were able to purchase and take home, as well as enjoy a made-to-order cafe as well as a fresh salad bar on the second floor of the building. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a closure of the cafe, but the business took the opportunity to renovate the space and add a new coffee bar and public seating. 

NevadaGrown

This organization’s mission is to foster the success of sustainable agriculture and to encourage healthy eating for Nevada’s communities through education, support, and promotion. NevadaGrown educates the community about the benefits of using Nevada-produced foods, encourages healthy eating habits that include seasonal foods from Nevada farms and ranches, provides educational opportunities to increase the knowledge and skills of Nevada’s agricultural producers, creates and promotes a sustainable local food system, and strengthens the bonds between farmers and consumers.

Tahoe Food Hub

This Truckee food co-op started because of fungi. Mycorrhizal fungi, a beneficial fungus that lives among the roots of a plant in a symbiotic relationship, interested founder and director of Tahoe Food Hub, Susie Sutphin. If treated organically, mycorrhizal fungi can help plants produce yields equal or greater than their non-organic counterparts, as well as help plants sequester carbon in the soil, mitigating climate change and creating more drought tolerant soil. An urge to encourage more farms to use these practices that foster mycorrhizal fungi led Susie on a two-year-long independent study to learn more about our food system and what she could do to fix it. Years of dedication and research led to the co-op being born and becoming the successful farm-to-table organization it now is. 

Slow Food Lake Tahoe

Slow Food Lake Tahoe is a Truckee-Tahoe organization whose mission is to connect the community to the enjoyment of good, clean, and fair food for all by inspiring a self-reliant food culture. Its members educate the community about growing, preparing, and accessing local and sustainable food. The organization also has six main objectives. First, its members sought to educate themselves. This specifically meant reading and discussing relevant literature by BIPOC authors to better educate themselves and unlearn racist thoughts and behavior within the community and food system. Second, they sought to reach out to BIPOC communities when planning for future projects to gain perspective and preferences from under-served socioeconomic communities. Third, they sought to include a diverse range of perspectives and experiences within the board of directors. Fourth, they wanted to maintain distribution of food to families in need. Fifth, through signage and marketing materials, they acknowledged and credited the ancestral lands in which they work to the Indigenous tribes to whom they belong. And, lastly, they committed to give an annual donation to food justice organizations.

Slow Food Lake Tahoe members’ community projects have included a food bank garden, community garden, compost collection, community skillshares, a salmon-buying club, and more.

Additional Lake Tahoe, Truckee, and Reno food supporters:

Urgc.org
Buynevada.org
Unce.unr.edu
Soulful-seeds.com
Fbnn.org
Renofarmersmarket.com