Hidden Gems: Meet David Demerling of East Denver Food Hub

Today we’d like to introduce you to David Demerling. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Came to Colorado in 2013 with the dream of starting a farm. Finding land proved changeling but at last found a 35-acre property east of Denver. While slowly building the farm with all the infrastructure needed to run a farm. 

Co-founding Emerald Gardens in 2017 and expanding into a 3000 sqft greenhouse and expanding our product offerings. working with more and more with other organization. January 2020, we lost one of our major grocery store chains and covid Hit and we lost all of our restaurants clients so we went into survival mode. Working with our partners we found enough clients to keep our farm going. during this time, we starting working with High Plains Food Co-op and hungry-free Colorado to supply WIC (Women Infant Children) food boxes fill with food from our farm and other small farms around us. We worked with these farms throughout covid and in fall 2020 we started East Denver Food Hub. 

The East Denver Food Hub, co-founded in 2020 by David Demerling and Roberto Meza, is a social enterprise working to develop a resilient, equitable, and compassionate local food (eco)system based on equity and inclusion, environmental stewardship, sustainable technologies, and private/public partnerships. EDFH is committed to building a model for local food aggregation and distribution, as well as educating the public on the value of supporting and investing in local farms. We work to demystify food supply chains, address food insecurity, support the viability of local agriculture, and develop community wealth-building initiatives to promote economic justice in our communities. 

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not bumps only rocks on this road. One step forward two steps back. Because of covid we lost 60% of sales and have been trying to get back on track ever since. 

Infrastructure has always been an issue need more space and need more capacity (people) to make that infrastructure useful. Hiring from the community 

How do you define success?
Happiness 

Pricing:

• Local Micro Salads 5oz $8
• Oyster mushrooms 4oz $4
• lion mane mushrooms 4oz $6
• Assorted Microgreens 1lbs $25
• Food Box $25

Contact Info:

• Email: david@eastdenverfoodhub.com
• Website: https://www.eastdenverfoodhub.com/
• Instagram: @eastdenverfoodhub

Image Credits
Ron Washington