Watch the Webinar!
Selling Local Food to Schools and Pantries: Lessons from 7 Years of Institutional Sales
Schools, food pantries, and other institutional buyers can bring steady, high-volume demand to local food businesses, but getting in the door takes more than good product. Whether you run a food hub, a co-op, a farm, or an aggregation or distribution business, this session will help you figure out what it takes to sell to institutions.
Join Local Food Marketplace and Renée Giroux, Executive Director of the Northwest Connecticut Regional Food Hub, for a practical look at how her organization grew its farm-to-school program from one district to more than 60 public schools. Renee will share what she’s learned and what she’d tell anyone just getting started, including:
- Building relationships with food service directors, and why it’s a slow build worth making
- Setting price points that work for both institutions and farmers
- Using lot tracking and traceability to show you’re a credible, food-safety-ready partner
- Matching institutional forecasting and volume needs to farm crop planning
- Managing prepaid purchase agreements and grant-funded pantry credits (like LFPA) so buyers always know where they stand
We’ll also show LFM’s new pre-orders module, built so institutions can log in and place orders for future weeks.
Renée Giroux is the Executive Director of the Northwest Connecticut Regional Food Hub. She has more than 20 years of experience in horticulture, sustainable agriculture, and local food systems. She founded the food hub nine years ago, and today it connects small and mid-sized farms with schools, healthcare providers, food pantries, and community organizations across Connecticut. The hub’s work includes Farm-to-School, food access, Produce Rx and Food Is Medicine programs, plus the aggregation, logistics, and distribution behind them.
This webinar was presented on October 27, 2026.