Program partners throughout the US, and many in michigan, have spent decades developing initiatives to support local and regional food producers access steady, high-volume markets of institutional…

The Kalamazoo Valley Community College (KVCC) received a $768,975 Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service under the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program. The grant will support KVCC's ValleyHub social enterprise farm and food hub to continue developing farm-to-institution supply chains in Southwest Michigan through September 2024. Specifically, ValleyHub will focus on outreach and marketing to institutional and retail buyers while shifting its farm food safety assistance to a more flexible, needs-based approach. The project will also add workforce development and capacity building for institutional food service provider staff to increase demand for locally and regionally produced agricultural products. Through these efforts, KVCC aims to grow ValleyHub's annual throughput of locally sourced food products from $330,000 to at least $750,000 and establish a sustainable operations level for ongoing educational opportunities.

Program partners throughout the US, and many in michigan, have spent decades developing initiatives to support local and regional food producers access steady, high-volume markets of institutional food service providers (ifsp), via food safety certification assistance, value chain coordination, and promotion. Valleyhub at kalamazoo valley community college (kvcc), a social enterprise farm and food hub, an active partner in this work, has experienced firsthand the challenges both growers and ifsps have in increasing capacity. Kvcc requests funding to continue valleyhub's work to support farm-to-institution supply chains in southwest michigan, and to fill gaps that have been identified from our work. We propose continuing our outreach and marketing work with institutional and retail buyers, but shifting the focus of our farm food safety work to a flexible, responsive approach that provides the appropriate level of food safety assurance for the farm size and customer type. We will add anadditional focus on workforce development, training, and capacity building for ifsp staff to increase the demand for local and regionally produced agricultural products. This project will grow kvcc valleyhub's throughput of locally and regionally produced food products from $330K to at least $750K annually and establish a sustainable level of operations to continue to provide ongoing educational opportunities.