Eating local food provides numerous environmental, economic and health benefits, but businesses and institutions don’t always know how or where to source local ingredients. WSU Clallam County Extension’s Farm to Community Program provides buyer-farmer matchmaking and food brokerage services, otherwise known as Value Chain Coordination, to make buying local the easy choice.
What is Value Chain Coordination?
Value Chain coordination is a market-based approach that develops local and regional food systems by making connections among businesses along the food supply chain, resulting in improved community outcomes and increased economic opportunity for food businesses.
Value Chain Coordination on the North Olympic Peninsula
In 2025, the WSU Extension Farm to Community Program worked with
23 Farms
from Clallam and Jefferson Counties…
To supply fresh, hyper-local food to
21 Sites
including Schools, Food Banks, Food Pantries and Meal Programs.
These new relationships resulted in
$174,900
in purchases of locally grown food, by local institutions.
Thanks to our program,
18 hyper-local produce and protein items
were featured in school breakfasts and lunches throughout the year.
What does Value Chain Coordination look like?
- Farm to Community Program coordinator Sallie Constant meets with chefs, food services directors, food buyers and program managers at food pantries, meal programs and school districts to understand their goals for sourcing fresh and local food.
- Once buyers are ready to order local, Sallie reaches out to one or several regional farms whose supply will meet the demand of the buyer, and places orders on behalf of the buyer.
- Sallie coordinates invoicing, accounts payable, aggregation and delivery by the farm directly to the customer, or by a third party. Occasionally, this involves reaching out to regional distribution partners, such as food banks, to make sure that orders from multiple farms can be combined into a single delivery.
If you represent a Clallam or Jefferson County-based business or organization interested in sourcing local food, reach out to sallie.constant@wsu.edu.
Access to nourishing food disrupts the vicious cycle of poor health. Donate to the Olympic Peninsula Farm to Food Bank fund today to help local farmers put food on your neighbor’s table.
Recent News from WSU’s Farm to Community Program
Program Contact
Sallie Constant, Farm to Community CoordinatorEmail Address • Sallie.Constant@wsu.edu