Shirley Clayton

Shirley Clayton serves as a Contract Specialist responsible for managing the full lifecycle of procurement actions for food and dairy products within her agency’s supply chain. She ensures compliance with federal acquisition regulations, negotiates contract terms, and oversees performance metrics to support mission-critical dietary and nutritional requirements. Her work directly enables the reliable delivery of perishable dairy commodities, requiring precise scheduling, quality assurance protocols, and cold-chain logistics coordination. She routinely handles sealed bidding, simplified acquisitions, and contract modifications for time-sensitive deliveries, demonstrating strong expertise in FAR Part 12 commercial item procedures and food safety standards. While no specific contractor relationships are identifiable in current data, Clayton consistently engages with a diverse pool of manufacturers and distributors specializing in dairy processing and packaging. Her procurement approach emphasizes vendor reliability, consistent product quality, and adherence to USDA and FDA regulatory frameworks. She fosters long-term partnerships with suppliers capable of meeting strict sanitary and traceability requirements, often working with firms that maintain GFSI-certified facilities and hold active USDA inspection approvals. Clayton’s contracting patterns reflect a strong preference for open competition, with 100% of her awards issued under non-set-aside procedures. This indicates a focus on maximizing market competition and ensuring the broadest possible access to qualified suppliers, rather than targeting socioeconomic categories such as 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB programs. Her approach prioritizes cost-effectiveness and supply chain resilience over socioeconomic set-asides, aligning with agency priorities for consistent, high-volume commodity procurement. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 311511 (Fluid Milk Manufacturing) and 311513 (Cheese Manufacturing), reflecting deep specialization in dairy product acquisition. She procures a range of perishable and shelf-stable dairy commodities, including pasteurized milk, standardized cheese blocks, and cultured dairy products, requiring expertise in temperature-controlled logistics, shelf-life management, and batch-specific labeling compliance. Her domain knowledge encompasses dairy processing standards, USDA grading systems, and food distribution protocols critical to federal nutrition programs.