Selling to Local Food Markets: Food Hubs
October 28, 2026 12:00PM - 1:30PM
Contact: Jazmin Bolan-Williamson
Join Michigan’s Emerging Farmers for this next webinar session in the series, Selling to Local Food Markets: A Webinar Series for Farmers. This session will provide discuss how farmers can sell products through food hubs. Rosie Florian and Amy Buskirk of ValleyHub, Anne Massie of NWI Food Council, and Jamie Rahrig will share practical tips, buyer insights, and strategies for accessing food hub markets.
Meet this week’s speakers
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Amy Buskirk is the Food Systems Education Program Manager at ValleyHUB, a social enterprise food hub operated by Kalamazoo Valley Community College. In this role, she provides technical assistance and educational support to food hub partners including farmers, food makers, and wholesale buyers such as schools, hospitals, groceries, pantries, and restaurants.
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Rosie Florian is the Manager at ValleyHUB, a food hub program operated by Kalamazoo Valley Community College, that distributes locally grown food to wholesale buyers while weaving in opportunities to demonstrate how it’s done. ValleyHUB also operates a light processing facility turning local apples into wedges and local carrots into sticks for kids and eaters to access a little easier. In this role, Rosie helps farmers by answering the phone at all hours of the day, leads a team of dynamic individuals that like coming to work, and adapts daily to the ever changing needs of the local food puzzle with a smile. Rosie continues to grow up in South West Michigan and is happy to apply her years of experience in the region farming, marketing, selling groceries and supporting the future of food.
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Anne Massie has a BA from Kalamazoo College in Psychology, Spanish and Philosophy and has spent the last 18 years building her career in local food advocacy in NW Indiana, gaining her farming knowledge through apprenticeships and workshops. From owning and operating her own diversified vegetable farm to leading significant non-profit work on food insecurity and farm viability, Anne has fully committed herself to changing our local food system as we know it. For 7 years, Anne has managed her own market garden farm, Grounded Earth Farm. Anne is most proud of her work supporting the start-up of the NWI Food Council during her 3 terms as volunteer Executive Board President and helping grow the organization dramatically by bringing in nearly 8 million dollars of grant funds for food systems development to Northwest Indiana.
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Jamie Rahrig is the Assistant Director of Partnerships and Director of Food and Farm Business Assistance at the Center for Regional Food Systems (CRFS) at Michigan State University and liaison to the MSU Product Center. She coordinates assistance for food and farm businesses with partners through programs that support more resilient and diverse local and regional food ecosystems.
Jamie co-coordinates the Michigan Food Hub Network, coordinates the Michigan Incubator Kitchen Network, and supports program evaluation at CRFS. She is lead author of several publications including the MSU CRFS Funding Resources for Food Related Businesses, a guide to assist food and farm businesses in accessing funding, the Loan Readiness Toolbox for Food and Farm Businesses, a toolkit of resources designed specifically to help food and farm businesses prepare for lending, and Producing a Value-Added Product on the Farm, information sheets to help farmers decide if producing a value-added product on the farm is right for their farm.
A Registered Dietitian, Jamie holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan – Flint, a Bachelor’s degree in Dietetics from Michigan State University, and Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of South Florida.
For questions about this webinar series, please contact Jazmin Bolan-Williamson, Farm and Food Business Coordinator at MSU CRFS at bolanwil@msu.edu.
About Michigan’s Emerging Farmers
Our statewide program aims to create pathways to growth and economic opportunity for all of Michigan’s agricultural producers, including small- to mid-sized farmers. This project is funded by USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, in a cooperative agreement with members of the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems, Michigan State University Extension, and Michigan Food and Farming Systems (MIFFS).
This work is supported by the American Rescue Plan Technical Assistance Initiative program, project award no. 2023-70417-39233, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.
This event is also brought to you by the Great Lakes Partnership for Food and Farm Business Development.
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