Hilary Cole

Hilary Cole supports the Agricultural Marketing Service’s mission to secure safe, shelf-stable food products for federal nutrition assistance programs by managing complex procurement actions for processed agricultural commodities. She oversees the acquisition of canned, frozen, dried, and prepared foods derived from meat, poultry, and seafood, ensuring compliance with federal food safety and nutritional standards. Her work is central to maintaining a resilient supply chain that delivers high-volume, low-margin commodities to schools, food banks, and other domestic assistance outlets. Cole specializes in full-life-cycle contracting for manufacturing and packaging services, coordinating requirements development, source selection, and contract administration for large-scale, mission-critical procurements. Her primary contractor relationships center on NavCor Logistics LLC, a key vendor with demonstrated capacity in integrated food processing and logistics. She consistently engages with manufacturers possessing USDA-compliant processing facilities and HACCP-certified operations, favoring partners with established track records in high-volume production and cold-chain distribution. Her contracting approach emphasizes performance-based specifications, quality control milestones, and delivery reliability over price alone, fostering long-term vendor partnerships grounded in regulatory adherence and operational consistency. Cole’s procurement portfolio reflects no set-aside preferences, with 100% of awards issued under full and open competition. This reflects a strategic emphasis on maximizing supply capacity and operational efficiency rather than socioeconomic targeting, aligning with the agency’s urgent need for scalable, consistent food production. While small business participation is not formally incentivized, vendors of all sizes compete on technical capability, compliance, and delivery performance. Her industry focus is dominated by NAICS 311611 (Animal Slaughtering) and 311615 (Poultry Processing), accounting for over 70% of her acquisitions, followed by seafood preparation (311710) and specialty canning (311422). She possesses deep expertise in meat and poultry transformation, ready-to-eat meal assembly, and preserved food manufacturing, ensuring procurement decisions align with USDA’s nutritional guidelines and federal food safety mandates.