Speakers

Gretchen Nollman

Food Sourcing Manager, River Bend Food Bank

After finishing college, Gretchen worked for multiple different agriculture companies where she traveled/lived in Central and South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa before spending the majority of her career in south-central Illinois. Gretchen relocated to southeast Iowa in January of 2014, where she worked in agriculture for another 9 years, having a career for 18 years in agriculture. Gretchen transitioned her career to leave agriculture and go into the non-profit sector and step into the Food Sourcing Manager role at River Bend Food Bank in June of 2023. There, Gretchen is in charge of sourcing food by strategically purchasing and coordinating food donations from local farmers, retailers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and the government. Gretchen works strategically to cultivate and grow relationships that will help combat and fight food insecurity while sourcing for food from local farmers, retail, wholesale, donated, and government food supplies. Her big focus is being able to provide food to those that are food insecure with a particular focus on increasing donated food through industry relationships so that partners of River Bend Food Bank can better serve those in need. Don’t let Gretchen kid you though, she didn’t get out of agriculture completely, she currently lives on a farm in Atalissa, IA, just outside of Muscatine in the country, where she helps raise a cow/calf operation for club calves to sell and show as well as replacement heifers.