Toward a Good Food Future
Impact Report
The Good Food Purchasing Program:
LOADING AWESOME
PART I: 2012-2019
LOADING AWESOME
Toward a Good Food Future
Impact Report
The Good Food Purchasing Program:
PART I: 2012-2019
PART ONE of this report provides an overview of the Program’s vision, an introduction to how it works, and highlights of its accomplishments over the past eight years. This report is a tool for Program partners—local coalitions, institutions, national organizations, and funders—to gain a deeper understanding of the Program’s history and scope; educate potential allies and collaborators; and continue building our momentum!
PART TWO of the report will be released in late 2020 and will explore these themes in greater detail, with additional case studies and expanded data analysis.
The Good Food Purchasing Program transforms the way public institutions purchase food based on principles of equity, accessibility, and transparency, and rooted in five core values: local economies, valued workforce, nutrition, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability.
introduction
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Meet Our Good Food Purchasing Partners
What’s Wrong with Our Food System?
Look for this icon to return to the Table of Contents anytime
Explore the report in your order of interest
CONTACT
Maps: Program Enrollment, Policy Adoption, and Active Coalitions
Raising the Bar: The Good Food Purchasing Standards
The Principles Underlying the Program’s Five Values
What is Values-Based Procurement?
Communities Shape the VisioN
Institutions Lead the WaY
References
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & CREDITS
Introduction
My hope is that the growing Good Food Purchasing Program will bring the issue of food justice to a wider audience and build momentum for systemic change. So many of us take food for granted as a basic need that has to be met without realizing that the food supply chain is rife with abuses—of workers, animals, environment, and health—and we have the power to change that.
"
Michelle Wu
City of Boston Councilor At-Large
2019 GOOD FOOD policy HERO
The impact of these institutional food service contracts is substantial. Around the country, officials and administrators pore over the minutiae in purchasing contracts for bread rolls and chicken, milk cartons and salad greens. Their decisions about what food to buy and which vendors to select are often dictated by law toward the cheapest bid, but many are working to change that, asking: shouldn't food reflect our values?
Every year, taxpayer funded institutions—from school districts to hospitals to city agencies—spend billions of dollars on food.
Institutional food service contracts represent:
The federal government also makes significant investments in food procurement, spending a total of more than
on school meals, summer meals, and supplemental food programs alone in 2018.
$120 billion
$21 billion
That's a lot of money.
(And a big opportunity.)
What if institutions invested that money in buying food for health and equity?
The Good Food Purchasing Program assists public institutions in using a values-based approach to food procurement: evaluating products and suppliers not only through a cost lens, but also by the social, economic, and environmental benefits they provide.
Throughout this report, you'll be introduced to:
key ACTORS supporting the realization of a good food vision
PARTNERS
including
Support from local and national FUNDERS ensures that Good Food Purchasing Program policy commitments are implemented meaningfully, with ongoing tracking, active improvement, and effective communication across the values. They also enable the Program to scale so that more institutions can participate and collective purchasing power can be leveraged to create transformative changes in food supply chains.
REAL FOOD MEDIA works closely with the core partners to set national strategy for narrative-building and framing that supports local coalitions, institutional partners, and other national allies in communicating the stakes, opportunities, and impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program. Real Food Media also accompanies local coalitions in setting strategy for their campaigns and celebrating victories at various phases, including coalition-building, policy adoption, and key media moments.
Across the communications work, partners aim to center the experiences and voices of women, youth, and people of color—communities who are most marginalized by food system injustices and can benefit the most from a policy that prioritizes racial and worker justice and includes tools for accountability and transparency.
Key to each city-based campaign's success are local and multi-sector coalitions, grassroots organizing capacity, supportive administrators, and political champions. The FOOD CHAIN WORKERS ALLIANCE helps grow these critical components of a successful campaign, ensuring local coalitions are made up of diverse stakeholders that represent various sectors of the food chain. With the Alliance’s support, the local coalitions drive campaign development and the adoption process, and, once a Policy is adopted, help hold the participating institution accountable to their commitments.
The CENTER FOR GOOD FOOD PURCHASING is the centralized home for the Good Food Purchasing Program and coordinates with local and national partners to expand and implement the Program. The Center works to develop and update the Good Food Purchasing Standards, fielding input from a wide range of food system experts and community groups. Center staff support institutions through training, assessment, and technical assistance to help them track and meet their Program commitments and celebrate successes. The Center also assists local coalitions who are interested in bringing the Program to their city to identify next steps.
Cross-sectoral, community-driven LOCAL COALITIONS help ensure that Program adoption and implementation in a city or region reflects community priorities and complements the existing work and expertise on the ground in that city. Local coalitions help identify and recruit institutions to adopt the program, secure formal program adoption through policy (such as school board resolution or citywide ordinance), and influence the public procurement process to ensure institutions and their vendors are held accountable to their policy commitments and that public contracts reflect community priorities, such as goals around increasing opportunities for producers of color in supply chains.
INSTITUTIONS like school districts and municipal government agencies that enroll in the Good Food Purchasing Program commit to meeting the baseline standard in each of the Program’s five values, incorporating the Good Food Purchasing Standards and reporting requirements into solicitations and contracts, establishing supply chain transparency to verify performance, and reporting on progress annually.
Meet Our Good Food Purchasing Partners
Institutions
local coalitions
center for good food purchasing
national partners
funders
Hover on each to learn more
Food chain workers alliance
real food media
Leading national food and farm organizations support expansion and implementation of the Program by promoting the Program at large and supporting individual city-based campaigns. NATIONAL PARTNERS support adoption campaign organizing, provide research, manage communications, provide value category education and strategy, and activate their networks in support of policy adoption and implementation.
PARTNERS
such as
STRATEGIES
Creative ways Program partners are advancing a values based food system
Throughout this report, you'll be introduced to:
keep an eye out for this icon to hover and learn more about these strategies
Local Strategies
You'll find these examples throughout the report highlighting
how coalitions and institutions are leveling up their efforts:
HOVER ON THE ICONS TO LEARN ABOUT THE STRATEGY
Many Good Food Purchasing Program policies include an annual hearing from the adopting body (e.g. school board, city council) on progress made during the past year of implementation efforts. Having a regular touchpoint allows food service leaders to celebrate their successes in a public setting and share challenges they have encountered. It also provides a mechanism by which coalitions can ensure that implementation is moving forward meaningfully. In LAUSD, the local coalition led by the Los Angeles Food Policy Council has worked with the school board and administration to conduct annual hearings in each of the last three years.
Annual Hearings
After a few years of making gains across a number of value categories, Austin Independent School District wanted to go all in on achieving the baseline in the five values and earn a four star rating. So, they raised funds for and hired a Good Food Purchasing Program consultant in 2018 to help them get there. AISD succeeded in passing a policy in February 2019 and is one of the participating institutions to watch, for its many procurement innovations and menu creativity.
Staffing Investment
In some communities, listening sessions have helped stakeholders to identify priorities for Good Food Purchasing Program implementation. In the Twin Cities, a farmer listening session held in December 2018 helped coalition leaders identify the primary barriers preventing small farmers of color from entering into institutional supply chains. In Washington DC, the school district held a listening session to share their baseline assessment findings, answer questions, and solicit feedback on next steps, to make sure the process is transparent and that community members have an avenue to participate.
Community Listening Sessions
To date, twelve cities and institutions have adopted Good Food Purchasing policies formalizing their commitment to the Program. The advantage of policy adoption is that this commitment becomes codified and thus can outlast a superstar food service director’s tenure or visionary elected champion’s administration. A policy can also create the framework for community engagement and accountability.
Policy Adoption
Pioneers in the Farm-to-School movement laid the groundwork in demonstrating that values-based, aggregated purchasing power can drive changes in the market. In fact, as the Center has measured changes in the purchase of chicken raised without routine antibiotic use over the last few years, we’ve been able to see the legacy of leaders like Natural Resources Defense Council—which led efforts to reduce antibiotic use in chickens raised as part of fast food supply chains and School Food Focus, which led the creation of the CRAU (Certified Responsible Antibiotic Use) label and built upon that momentum to make products available in the K-12 market—manifested in measurable gains for the institutions we work with.
Building on Farm-to-School
The Good Food Purchasing Program brings stakeholders from across sectors together to work collaboratively on locally-relevant changes to procurement practices. In some cities, a central office (e.g. the Department of Public Health in Chicago and the Austin Office of Sustainability) engages food purchasing departments to drive implementation forward and consider ways to engage public and private institutions from within other sectors and jurisdictions.
Agencies convened in New York City by the Mayor’s Office are considering ways to modify existing processes to be more collaborative in their procurements and create new mechanisms for obtaining products that align with the standards. The Program also brings advocates for Good Food Purchasing together outside of city structures. Local coalitions in many cities are composed of non-profit and private sector partners who hold local knowledge about the five values and advocate for effective implementation.
Cross-Sectoral Collaboration
Thinking creatively about what you’re putting on the menu and how often is a key strategy to success in the Program. Sometimes, a new or reformulated menu item will allow you to incorporate a more expensive, higher quality product that wouldn’t be possible under the existing menu—such as grass-fed beef and specialty produce.
Menu Frequency & Creativity
Meatless Mondays or similar programs can contribute to overall reduction in the amount of meat purchased and served by an institution, and can be part of a strategy to improve the healthfulness of the menu by encouraging more plant-based options, reducing the environmental footprint of food services, and decreasing overall costs. A number of schools and university campuses across the country have implemented Meatless Monday initiatives. For participating institutions, these programs complement the Good Food Purchasing Program and can increase their scores in the nutrition, sustainability, and animal welfare categories of the Good Food Purchasing Standards.
Meatless Mondays
First things first.
Why is the Good Food Purchasing Program so urgently needed?
The expansion of industrial food around the world has come at a high cost for biodiversity, while at the same time exploiting workers, mistreating animals, and making us sick through poor diets and polluted environments. Low-income communities and communities of color are the most directly impacted by the negative impacts of our food system.
What's wrong with our food system?
Local communities have lost economic power
As economic power becomes more concentrated, consumers, workers, and farmers are marginalized from making decisions about our food system, with people of color especially excluded. Many agribusiness and food corporations make large profits which are mostly taken out of local communities and influence the political process.
Over the course of the last 60 years, decisions about food and farming have shifted increasingly to the corporate sector.
Food workers are often exploited
In the United States today, 21.5 million people are employed in jobs along the food chain.
growing, harvesting, processing, butchering, transporting, preparing, selling, and serving food. Many food workers are subjected to injustices, including wage theft, pesticide exposure, racial and ethnic discrimination, unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, and lack of access to health benefits.
Seven out of ten of the lowest-paying jobs in the United States are food jobs:
Our food is making us sick
Many people around the country—particularly low-income people and communities of color—have limited access to healthy food and are often surrounded by foods that are high in sugar, salt, and fat. Poor diets increase the risk of diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
1 in 4 young adults is pre-diabetic.
African American adults are 60 percent more likely than white adults to have been diagnosed with diabetes.
Animals are mistreated
Genetically bred for maximum production, they frequently suffer from abnormalities like heart failure and broken bones. On factory farms, large numbers of animals are often kept under constant stress in densely-crowded conditions and given steady doses of antibiotics to compensate for unsanitary conditions.
More than 99 percent of the animals raised for meat, dairy, and eggs in the United States are raised in confined, intensive, and controlled operations known as factory farms.
The environment and climate suffer
Industrial agriculture harms our environment, farmers, workers, and rural communities.
This model is characterized by monocultures, heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and intensive livestock operations.
Monocultures deplete natural soil fertility, replacing it with costly and often toxic chemical fertilizers, while causing soil erosion that leaves the land vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
We have a different vision
It includes things like well-paying “green” jobs, reductions in meat consumption and food waste, more accessible and energy-efficient transportation, and greater economic and racial equity. Policymakers, school boards, youth, food purchasing directors, food policy councils, farmers, small business, and experts across various fields are coming together in a democratic exchange of ideas to shape this new vision.
Some examples include:
Institutional food procurement is a powerful tool that can help us make our vision a reality.
Around the country, cities, institutions, and communities have a different vision for the world we want to live in.
The Good Food Purchasing Values
Five equally weighted value categories drive the Program's vision and provide the basis for its procurement framework. It's the first model of its kind to use this holistic approach.
Provide safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation for all food chain workers and producers from production to consumption.
Valued Workforce
Support diverse, family and cooperatively owned, small and mid-sized agricultural and food processing operations within the local area or region.
Local Economies
Source from producers that provide healthy and humane conditions for farm animals.
Animal Welfare
Promote health and well-being by offering generous portions of vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and minimally processed foods, while reducing salt, added sugars, saturated fats, and red meat consumption and eliminating artificial additives.
Nutrition
Source from producers that employ sustainable production systems to reduce or eliminate synthetic pesticides and fertilizers; avoid the use of hormones, routine antibiotics and genetic engineering; conserve and regenerate soil and water; protect and enhance wildlife habitats and biodiversity; and reduce on-farm energy and water consumption, food waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Reduce menu items that have high carbon and water footprints, using strategies such as plant forward menus, which feature smaller portions of animal proteins in a supporting role.
Environmental Sustainability
Buying local matters.
Purchasing food from local farms and businesses helps strengthen local and regional economies. It’s especially important for local food procurement to work towards benefiting historically marginalized suppliers such as business-owners and producers of color.
A study of farm-to-school programs, which connect school food procurement with local food producers, showed that every dollar spent stimulates an additional $0.60-$2.16 of local economic activity.
$1.00
per
1.6x
local food purchases can stimulate
3x
the economic activity per dollar spent
Photo: Soul Fire Farm
14.4%
22.2%
from
DOWNLOAD LOCAL ECONOMIES SPOTLIGHT (PDF)
VIDEO: Local Economies Spotlight ON Austin Independent School District
MEDIAN ANNUAL FOOD SPEND TOWARD LOCAL ECONOMIES
Over the past six years, institutions enrolled in the Good Food Purchasing Program have nearly doubled their annual spend on foods supporting diverse, family and cooperatively owned, small and mid-sized agricultural and food processing operations within the local area or region.
Photo: Soul Fire Farm
Institutions can help ensure that food procurement dollars support the health and wellbeing of food workers, from farm to fork.
Unions and other worker-led groups are organizing numerous campaigns, with widespread consumer support, to hold food companies accountable and promote policies that improve wages and working conditions.
Over the past six years, institutions have directed
$20 million toward suppliers with union wages and worker protections
DOWNLOAD VALUED WORKFORCE SPOTLIGHT (PDF)
VIDEO: VALUED WORKFORCE Spotlight ON CINCINNATI INTERFAITH WORKERS CENTER
supported the creation of new jobs, and increased efforts to ensure safe and healthy working conditions and fair compensation for all food chain workers and producers from production to consumption through participation in the Good Food Purchasing Program.
To turn on English subtitles, click on "CC" in the lower right-hand corner of the video and select English.
Half of a child's daily calories are consumed in school.
With strategic planning, schools can leverage their purchasing to provide more nutritious (and less processed) food to their students without exceeding their budgets.
DOWNLOAD NUTRITION SPOTLIGHT (PDF)
To date, institutions have collectively increased their purchase of whole and minimally processed food items by about 5 percent and are on track to meet this target.
While 75 percent of the meat institutions currently purchase is processed or red meat, they have committed to reducing the amount of processed and red meat they purchase by 5 percent per year.
Participating institutions are currently purchasing 42 percent whole foods or minimally processed foods, with a commitment to increasing the total amount by 25 percent in five years.
Market demand for farm animal welfare is high.
Polls show 94 percent of Americans agree
that farm animals deserve to live free from abuse and cruelty.
Institutions can help animals live better lives by reducing meat consumption and increasing demand for humanely-raised animal products.
DOWNLOAD ANIMAL WELFARE SPOTLIGHT (PDF)
In the past six years, institutions enrolled in the Program have increased their animal welfare purchases by 50 percent through efforts to source from producers that provide healthy and humane conditions for farm animals.
Many farmers across the country are using sustainable practices
like cover cropping, crop rotation, integrated pest management, and crop-livestock integration—that work with nature instead of against it. US consumers increasingly demand food that is sustainably produced.
By providing markets for sustainable food producers, institutions can support the adoption of sustainable farming, ranching, and business practices.
in public dollars redirected toward producers and practices that reinforce our vision.
in aggregate spend toward producers that:
In the past six years, institutions have shifted $4.3 million
DOWNLOAD environmental sustainability SPOTLIGHT (PDF)
This represents an increase of over 250%
strategy spotlight: meatless mondays
Strategy Spotlight: Meatless Mondays
Meatless Mondays or similar programs can contribute to overall reduction in the amount of meat purchased and served by an institution, and can be part of a strategy to improve the healthfulness of the menu by encouraging more plant-based options, reducing the environmental footprint of food services, and decreasing overall costs. A number of schools and university campuses across the country have implemented Meatless Monday initiatives. For participating institutions, these programs complement the Good Food Purchasing Program and can increase their scores in the nutrition, sustainability, and animal welfare categories of the Good Food Purchasing Standards.
VIDEO: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY SPOTLIGHT WITH CHEF ANN COOPER
In the past six years, institutions have shifted $7.7 million toward producers that do not routinely use antibiotics in raising livestock and poultry.
This represents a shift of more than 700% from baseline levels to current levels.
The landmark EAT-Lancet Commission report, for instance, made a strong link between healthy diets and sustainable food systems. The Commission advocates:
Experts increasingly argue that to tackle poverty, hunger, diet-related disease, and climate change, we need to connect the dots.
The Good Food Purchasing Program does exactly this: it brings together key stakeholders to develop a holistic food procurement strategy that reflects collective values.
LOS ANGELES:
the first good food city
On Food Day, October 24, 2012, the City of Los Angeles became the first in the country to sign on to the Good Food Purchasing Program, followed a few weeks later by LA Unified School District.
While many cities and institutions around the country had adopted food procurement policies focused on things like nutrition or a preference for local food, none had a comprehensive policy that included support for the local economy, environmental sustainability, a valued workforce, nutrition, and animal welfare.
The Program has its origins in a Food Policy Task Force created by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in 2009, ultimately leading to the creation of the LA Food Policy Council the following year. The Council quickly went to work developing its definition of "good food," bringing together representatives from across the food chain including farmers, labor unions, chefs, institutional food buyers, animal welfare advocates, and others.
After two years of lively discussion, consensus-building, research, expert input, and intensive internal and external review, a definition of "good food" emerged—defined as food that is healthy, local, fair, humane, and sustainable. This definition has since become a unifying framework for people across the country working in food system change.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing was created in 2015 to expand the Program beyond LA, and support institutions interested in using it as a tool for advancing the collective vision of good food.
VIDEO: Breanna Hawkins on the History of THE PROGRAM in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES
THE FIRST GOOD FOOD CITY
220 new well-paying food chain jobs in LA county
including food processing, manufacturing, and distribution.
96 percent of its chicken raised without routine antibiotics
LA Unified School District currently purchases over
$17 million in food from local growers and manufacturers.
As of 2018, the school district is purchasing:
In Los Angeles, the Program's impacts have rippled throughout the city and region.
The Program has helped redirect taxpayer dollars away from “low-road employers” towards more values-aligned suppliers for receiving institutional food contracts. For example, the food distribution corporation A&R and meat processor Tyson were prevented from receiving a chicken contract from the Los Angeles Unified School District due to their labor practices as well as Tyson’s environmental and animal welfare violations.
Its participation has contributed to the creation of at least:
which is just shy of the goal of 100 percent they set in 2014 as part of their Good Food Purchasing Program commitment and Urban School Food Alliance membership.
LOS ANGELES
THE FIRST GOOD FOOD CITY
strategy spotlight: ANNUAL HEARINGS
Strategy Spotlight: Annual Hearings
Many Good Food Purchasing Program policies include an annual hearing from the adopting body (e.g. school board, city council) on progress made during the past year of implementation efforts. Having a regular touchpoint allows food service leaders to celebrate their successes in a public setting and share challenges they have encountered. It also provides a mechanism by which coalitions can ensure that implementation is moving forward meaningfully. At Los Angeles Unified School District, the local coalition led by the Los Angeles Food Policy Council has worked with the school board and administration to conduct annual hearings in each of the last three years.
LAUSD has also promoted a valued workforce in its supply chain through the Program,
320 workers have seen their base salary increase by over 40 percent
contributing to the Teamsters Local 63 and Joint Council 42's efforts to secure union contracts for truck drivers and warehouse workers at a food distribution company. The Local and Joint Council were able to make the case for higher wages and workplace protections for 320 drivers and warehouse workers based on LAUSD's Good Food Purchasing Program commitment.
from $13/hour to $19/hour for drivers and from close to minimum wage to $16/hour.
Additionally, workers are guaranteed:
Raises over the next three years
A grievance procedure
A voice with management
A new pay incentive program
Our truck driver members likely would have never won their union contract without the procurement policy at LAUSD and the coalition of organizations that helped put the policy in place, and that continue to ensure it's being implemented as effectively as possible.
"
Shaun Martinez
Teamsters Strategic Campaigner, Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES
THE FIRST GOOD FOOD CITY
What is values-based procurement?
The Good Food Purchasing Program influences nearly
$1 billion in annual food purchases through Program enrollment and policy adoption.
The Program is a comprehensive purchasing strategy being adopted in cities nationwide, leveraging the purchasing power of public institutions to achieve a more transparent, equitable, and sustainable food system. It provides a set of flexible metrics-based standards and benchmarks to track progress.
are enrolled in the Program and committed to supply chain traceability and reporting.
43
institutions
Program enrollment occurs when an institution agrees to participate in the Good Food Purchasing Program and commits to undergo a baseline assessment, establish supply chain traceability, incorporate the Program into solicitations and contracts, and track progress annually.
Program Enrollment
Policy Adoptions
As of December 2019, Good Food Purchasing Program policies have been adopted by local governments, schools, and other institutions in:
Policy adoption occurs when the governing body of a public institution—such as a city council, school board, or Mayor’s Office—commits to implementing the Good Food Purchasing Program through an official ordinance, resolution, executive order, or other formal policy channel.
12
including cities, counties, and school districts
jurisdictions
Good Food Purchasing Momentum
In addition to cities with enrolled institutions and policy adoptions, there are diverse, community-based coalitions advancing Good Food Purchasing campaigns across the country.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing supports institutions by:
How the Good Food Purchasing Program works
Participating institutions commit to:
An institution that meets the baseline in all five values becomes a Good Food Provider
An important part of the Center's role is working with data: assisting institutions and their food service providers in gathering information that accurately reflects their food purchasing and analyzing that data to guide improvements.
Institutions typically enter the Good Food Purchasing Program already excelling in one or two categories—usually local economies and nutrition—where they have focused energy and resources through existing policies or programs, such as Farm to School initiatives. The Program helps institutions measure the success of these existing initiatives, build on them to magnify their impact, and make gains in other values.
Together with partners, the Center continues to expand its data capabilities in order to provide more powerful data tools for institutions, communities, and policymakers. Data is what allows us to see the big picture and know how to go after bigger changes.
Good Data for Good Food
strategy spotlight: BUILDING ON FARM-TO-SCHOOL
Strategy Spotlight: Building on Farm-to-School
Pioneers in the Farm-to-School movement laid the groundwork in demonstrating that values-based purchasing can drive changes in the market. For example, we’ve seen how Farm-to-School leaders have created momentum in the purchase of chicken raised without the routine use of antibiotics. The Natural Resources Defense Council led efforts to reduce antibiotic use in chickens raised as part of fast food supply chains. School Food Focus helped create the CRAU (Certified Responsible Antibiotic Use) label and helped make those products available in the K-12 market. These efforts manifested as measurable gains for the institutions we work with.
We didn't have to invent the process from scratch. We could have assistance from a tried-and-true process and, at the same time, develop our own goals and processes that would reflect our values.
"
Edwin Marty
Food Policy Manager
City of Austin Office of Sustainability
Raising the Bar:
The Good Food Purchasing Standards
While institutional food buyers use a variety of factors to make food purchasing decisions, contracts tend to be awarded to the lowest bidder. Because a single contract can generate substantial revenue, vendors have an incentive to compete to meet the standards identified in the contract.
The Good Food Purchasing Standards let vendors know that, for the institution as well as the broader community, food must meet a higher standard that contributes to the wellbeing of all.
The first version of the Standards was developed in 2012 by a diverse group of experts and reviewers across the five value categories.
The Standards undergo a rigorous review process every five years that includes extensive stakeholder outreach and input. This process led to the release of Version 2.0 of the Standards in September 2017.
These experts examine various criteria, including a number of third party certifications, and carefully consider them for inclusion in the Standards. Certifications are ranked according to rigor, auditing process, and alignment with the Program's values.
Standards development & process
click to see which certifications
are included in the Standards
Standards development & process
The scoring system allows institutions to earn points, improve their score, and obtain a star rating.
More points are awarded for achievement at higher levels in each value, allowing institutions to raise their score by emphasizing their high priority value categories. As points accumulate, higher star ratings are awarded:
Read about Boulder Valley School District, the first institution to earn a 5-star rating
means striving to make data about food procurement and its impacts open to public scrutiny and increasing community participation in decision-making processes through hearings, town halls, stakeholder task forces, etc.
TRANSPARENCY
Principles Underlying the Program's Five Values
boston, massachusetts
means it's not enough to increase the amount of good food; it must also be affordable for all, physically available, and culturally relevant to diverse communities. Accessibility also means tackling barriers to markets, credit, and land that have historically prevented people of color from accessing these resources.
ACCESSIBILITY
means that, first and foremost, good food should benefit those most negatively affected by our current food system, such as farms and businesses owned by people of color.
EQUITY
At the core of the Good Food Purchasing Program are essential principles that guide the work and underpin the Program's five value categories:
These principles provide a compass by which the Center for Good Food Purchasing, participating institutions, and local coalitions work to ensure the Program meets its potential for far-reaching food system transformation. Cities and institutions adopting Good Food Purchasing Program policies are increasingly opting to include clear language and mechanisms around equity, accessibility, and transparency.
Cook county, illinois
CLICK TO SEE POLICY EXAMPLES
Who's really benefiting from that contract? How do we make sure that those who have been most impacted by systemic injustices in our food system are the primary beneficiaries of these opportunities? I'm excited to see racial equity elevated as a priority of this policy and eager to see what's next.
"
Breanna Hawkins
Former Policy Director, Los Angeles Food Policy Council
BOSTON:
putting equity and transparency to work
In addition to clear racial equity measures, the Boston ordinance features strong language around transparency and includes the creation of a Community Advisory Committee to support implementation and "city constituent representation" that will assist in evaluating procurement requests.
The Boston City Council unanimously passed a Good Food Purchasing Program ordinance in March 2019. Under the ordinance, the city of Boston will give preference to food vendors with a history of paying workers living wages and hiring employees from marginalized communities or basing their businesses there.
Boston is a racially diverse city, but it’s also been described as one of the nation’s most segregated, with a large racial wealth gap: Boston’s Black households have a median net worth of $8 compared to $247,500 for white households.
BOSTON
EQUITY AND TRANSPARENCY
Boston is a model for how cities and institutions can incorporate racial equity and community engagement as part of their good food vision.
It was important to our group to include this provision emphasizing racial equity and closing the wealth gap, because that’s a glaring area of need in Boston. The work aligns with other initiatives that we have been pushing on the Boston City Council, including equity in opportunity for city contracting overall for businesses owned by people of color and women. At a time when so much is at stake in government and society, we want to get every bit of value of spending taxpayer dollars, and this push for equity needed to be part of our food justice plans.
"
Michelle Wu
Councilor-at-Large, City of Boston
Increasingly, good food advocates around the country are finding that creating mechanisms for transparent food procurement and community engagement are key to ensuring effective implementation of the Program.
Communities shape the vision
When you live in a city like New York City,
where the scale is so massive,
conversations can easily get siloed.
What the coalition-building process has looked like here is an opportunity to say:
‘I haven't been in the same room as you.
I haven't been at the same table as you.
But when we come together, we recognize that we have significant potential and power.'
strategy spotlight: cross-sectoral collaboration
"
Strategy Spotlight: Cross-Sectoral Collaboration
The Good Food Purchasing Program brings stakeholders from across sectors together to work collaboratively on locally-relevant changes to procurement practices. In some cities, a central office (e.g. the Department of Public Health in Chicago and the Austin Office of Sustainability) engages food purchasing departments to drive implementation forward and consider ways to engage public and private institutions from within other sectors and jurisdictions.
Agencies convened in New York City by the Mayor’s Office are considering ways to modify existing processes to be more collaborative in their procurements and create new mechanisms for obtaining products that align with the standards. The program also brings advocates for Good Food Purchasing together outside of city structures. Local coalitions in many cities are composed of non-profit and private sector partners who hold local knowledge about the five values and advocate for effective implementation.
Ribka Getachew
NYC Good Food Purchasing Program Campaign Director
Communities know what they need. That's why community-based coalitions are the beating heart of the Good Food Purchasing Program.
Bringing together local groups from across different food sectors and representing different value categories, local coalitions work in partnership with institutions to shape the vision for what the Good Food Purchasing Program will look like in practice. While the Program offers benchmarks that institutions must meet in each value category, the Program is also flexible, such that each Good Food Purchasing Program policy looks different depending on the community's needs and priorities.
Photo: Los Angeles Food Policy Council
Community-Based Coalitions
Coalitions made up of representatives from across the food system—from workers to farmers to students—are working with partners to make sure the principles of equity, accessibility, and transparency are reflected in policy language and Program implementation.
Communities are instrumental in shaping the vision and driving the change behind the Good Food Purchasing Program.
COALITION LEAD ORGANIZATIONS INCLUDE:
WITH SUPPORT FROM:
As core partners, the Food Chain Workers Alliance and Real Food Media work closely with local coalitions and contribute invaluable organizing, strategy, and communications expertise.
CHICAGO:
Building momentum to transform the food system
The Good Food Purchasing Program has the power to transform the food system in every region where it is implemented as it will in Cook County where we are creating a model for food procurement that supports frontline communities most impacted by existing inequities.
"
Rodger Cooley
Executive Director
Chicago Food Policy Action Council
2017 GOOD FOOD local HERO
Under the Program, the County will incentivize contracts with minority- and women-owned businesses, help to preserve urban farmland with community ownership, and transition publicly owned vacant lots to minority-owned social enterprises and public land trusts.
The Chicago Food Policy Action Council and a coalition of over 40 organizations helped press—and win—the adoption of the Program in the City of Chicago, the Chicago Parks District, and Chicago Public Schools in 2017. And with leadership from then-Cook County Board Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and the County’s Commission on Social Innovation, the county followed suit in 2018, making it the first county in the nation to adopt the Program.
CHICAGO
GOOD FOOD MOMENTUM
Perhaps no other place embodies the momentum of the Good Food Purchasing Program—rooted in tireless organizing, visionary policymakers, supportive administrative leaders, and economic and racial equity—than Chicago.
Cook County’s Good Food Purchasing Program resolution will help open doors for the emerging producers from the South and West sides in Chicago and Cook County to have access to land, resources, and markets.
"
Erika Allen
Urban Growers Collective
Illinois’ good food advocates now have their sights set on the country’s first state-wide adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program.
In Cook County, enthusiasm for the Program came in large part from those businesses, workers, consumers, and farmers that have long been marginalized in the food system.
The Chicago Food Policy Action Council estimates that the county spends $20.6 million on food each year.
strategy spotlight: POLICY ADOPTION
Strategy Spotlight: Policy Adoption
To date, twelve cities and institutions have adopted Good Food Purchasing policies formalizing their commitment to the Program. The advantage of policy adoption is that this commitment becomes codified and thus can outlast a superstar food service director’s tenure or visionary elected champion’s administration. A policy can also create the framework for community engagement and accountability.
Like most institutions, in schools, almost all policy decisions are made by adults. But students are directly affected by the food that is served—it impacts their health, their happiness, and even their academic performance. Young people also care deeply about the community they live in and the planet they live on, sometimes more so than adults!
Whether it’s how farmworkers are treated, how their lunch contributes to climate change,, or how the food reflects their culture—when students are given pathways to make their voices heard, they rise to the occasion. And from San Francisco, CA, to Buffalo, NY, they are doing just that.
Across the Country, Youth Are Speaking Out for Good Food
Too often we think young people don't get it, but when we give them a microphone, they communicate that they do get it and that they have personal interest and vision and concerns about these issues.
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Good Food Buffalo Coalition Coordinator
REBEKAH WILLIAMS
At San Francisco Unified Food District, a youth-led School Food Advisory Council provides a space that inspires and challenges students to advocate for an inclusive and equitable school dining experience. The group spends the year learning about school food before working with Student Nutrition Services to design new school meals and pitch them to students, families, teachers, and district administrators.
VIDEO: Youth leading the charge in Buffalo
Local coalitions benefit from being able to connect with one another to troubleshoot, learn, and share best practices. One of the ways coalitions connect is through quarterly Peer-to-Peer network conference calls, where they share campaign updates and ideas. While they require more resources, nothing beats face-to-face exchanges.
Coalitions Support and Learn from Each Other
For example, in October 2018 coalition members from Buffalo, NY, traveled to Chicago, IL, where they were hosted by the Chicago Food Policy Action Council. Good Food Buffalo, which has an active campaign, was able to learn about the approaches and strategies used by the Chicago coalition in their successful campaign for a city-wide and a countywide Good Food Purchasing Program policy.
Institutions lead the way
The success and momentum of the Good Food Purchasing Program are thanks to the commitment of pioneering institutions and their visionary leaders.
With support from the Center for Good Food Purchasing, school board members, food service directors, and staff are gaining more information about food sources and getting creative with menus in order to bring healthy, delicious, and culturally appropriate food to students—all while meeting their tight budgets and federal guidelines. Policymakers committed to a more just and equitable food system are embracing the Program as a tool for serving their constituents by bringing opportunities to small farmers and food businesses and healthy food to consumers in their districts.
Institutions Investing in Good Food
The institutions enrolled in the Good Food Purchasing Program annually invest:
$32,545,779 toward Valued Workforce
$56,868,413 toward Local Economies
$1,279,790 toward Animal Welfare
$10,419,051 toward Environmental Sustainability
$20,908,767 toward meat raised without routine antibiotics
DC Public Schools Food and Nutrition Services strives to involve the community in every major step of advancing the Good Food Purchasing Program. We will continue to update on progress and solicit feedback so that the program is meeting our stakeholders’ needs and priorities.
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DC Public Schools and DC Greens
Good Food Purchasing Program Implementation Update
strategy spotlight: COMMUNITY LISTENING SESSIONS
Strategy Spotlight: Community Listening Sessions
In some communities, listening sessions have helped stakeholders to identify priorities for Good Food Purchasing Program implementation. In the Twin Cities, a farmer listening session held in December 2018 helped coalition leaders identify the primary barriers preventing small farmers of color from entering into institutional supply chains. In Washington DC, the school district held a listening session to share their baseline assessment findings, answer questions, and solicit feedback on next steps, to make sure the process is transparent and that community members have an avenue to participate.
Beyond receiving technical support from the Center for Good Food Purchasing along with public engagement support from other local and national partners, institutions benefit from sharing experiences across a network of participating institutions. For instance, food service staff from different school districts that are at different stages of implementing the Program frequently exchange ideas and strategies.
In addition to informal calls and meetings, in July 2019 the Center coordinated the inaugural meeting of the Good Food Purchasing Program Operator Affinity Group. Through bi-monthly calls, the affinity group is a space where individuals involved in food procurement at their institutions can come together to draw support from peers and build new skills, garner expert advice, access cutting edge resources, and move towards their common goal of advancing the Good Food Purchasing Program.
The Center convenes institutions to share insights that move them closer to their Good Food goals.
AUSTIN:
pioneering good food in texas
One of the approaches AISD took to help them get to the next level in the Program was to hire a Good Food Purchasing Program consultant in 2019. Their investment paid off: not only did they adopt a policy, they are also making headway toward achieving the baseline in all five values to earn a four-star rating.
AUSTIN
PIONEERING GOOD FOOD IN TEXAS
In February 2019, after a three-year pilot program, Austin Independent School District—serving 75,000 meals per day on 129 campuses and managing a $13 million annual food budget—officially became the first school district in Texas to adopt the Good Food Purchasing Program.
This year we changed our policy to have three produce vendors because one of those vendors is a local organic farm that pays their workers a living wage and provides health insurance and they actually are planting crops specifically for our menu. So you could go out to the farm and see the AISD fields of carrots!
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Anneliese Tanner
AISD Executive Director of Food Services and Warehouse Operations
Strategy Spotlight: Staffing Investment
After a few years of making gains across a number of value categories, Austin Independent School District wanted to go all in on achieving the baseline in the five values and earn a four star rating. So, they raised funds for and hired a Good Food Purchasing Program consultant in 2018 to help them get there. AISD succeeded in passing a policy in February 2019 and is one of the participating institutions to watch, for its many procurement innovations and menu creativity.
strategy spotlight: STAFFING INVESTMENT
The team at AISD Nutrition and Food Services is passionate about good food—and serving delicious recipes that both reflect the diversity of the kids and teach food and cultural literacy to all students.
With two dual-language Vietnamese schools in the district now, they added banh mi and pho to the menu at all the schools, with a focus on Vietnamese language and culture. Says Annelise Tanner, Executive Director of Food Services & Warehouse Operations: "We have a diverse city, so we have to have a diverse menu to meet the needs of all of our students. I tell my team, ‘The cafeteria is a classroom, and it’s not just nutrition; it’s the food system and cultural foodways, too.’”
AISD Baba Ganoush Sampling
AISD is emblematic of how an energetic and committed institution can take good food to the next level while dishing up culturally relevant dishes and inspiring broad-based community involvement.
2019 GOOD FOOD INSTITUTION HERO
School District's
Good Food Excellence
BOULDER:
Under the leadership of “renegade lunch lady” Chef Ann Cooper and her team, the School Food Project at Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) has made impressive strides, becoming the first institution in Good Food Purchasing Program history to earn a 5-star rating. In addition, they earned the Good Food Provider seal by meeting—and in this case, exceeding!—baseline standards in all five value categories.
BOULDER
SCHOOL DISTRICT'S EXCELLENCE
This award is to be shared with all school food and nutrition professionals. It is proof positive that a school district can actually influence a local or regional food economy. I want our record high score to catalyze school districts everywhere to believe they can be at the vanguard of not just school food improvement, but overall societal change.
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Chef Ann Cooper
Director of Food Services, Boulder Valley School District
VIDEO: CHEF ANN COOPER ON COST CONSTRAINTS & MENU CREATIVITY
In 2017, through local food purchasing, BVSD invested $890,700 into the Colorado economy—over 41 percent of its total food spend, which translates to over 2.19 million meals. Almost 10 percent of these purchases came from small, local farms within 250 miles of the school district. BVSD’s designation as the highest ranking Good Food Provider proves it’s possible for school districts to promote a food system based on the Program’s values without increasing food costs.
2018 GOOD FOOD INSTITUTION HERO
strategy spotlight: MENU CREATIVITY
Strategy Spotlight: Menu Creativity
Thinking creatively about what you’re putting on the menu and how often is a key strategy to success in the program. Sometimes, a new or reformulated menu item will allow you to incorporate a more expensive, higher quality product that wouldn’t be possible under the existing menu—such as grass-fed beef and specialty produce.
Charting a better food future
By building alliances, increasing transparency and accountability, and deepening our commitment to equity, we are making our vision a reality.
Institutions participating in the Good Food Purchasing Program are influencing nearly $1 billion in food purchases annually through Program enrollment and policy adoption. That’s no small feat, and as this report has shown, it has real-life impacts. The Good Food Purchasing Program helps ensure that our public resources are working to create a food system where we can all thrive.
Their goal? Deepen their coordination in leveraging food procurement to drive large-scale food system transformation in support of racial and economic equity. Organized with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the gathering provided a window onto a growing, energetic, and unstoppable national Good Food procurement movement led by some of the country’s most innovative food visionaries.
Inaugural Power of Procurement National Gathering
There could not have been a more invigorating way to spend my first few days as National Farm to School Network’s new Executive Director than with mentors, colleagues, partners, and collaborators at the Power of Procurement: Good Food for our Future summit. My mind is bursting with inspiration and I’m buzzing with new ideas.
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Helen Dombalis
Executive Director, National Farm to School Network
READ A RECAP OF THE POWER OF PROCUREMENT SUMMIT
In May 2019, at the beautiful and historic South Shore Cultural Center on the southside of Chicago, over 250 national and regional food system leaders from 20 regional cohorts across the United States came together.
We’ve made progress, but the road is long.
In this report, we’ve highlighted how different cities and institutions are making the Good Food Purchasing Program their own and using it as a tool to advance their priorities, while making progress across the five values. We’ve seen how institutions are building on their farm-to-school efforts and other successful programs by beginning to purchase from smaller producers when possible and adding new priorities—like responsible labor practices—into their food purchasing decisions. And ongoing advocacy from community supporters is helping to translate policy commitments into real improvements to people’s lives.
Still, if you look at the scale of the problems in our food system—corporate consolidation, poverty and hunger, underfunded public services, environmental degradation and climate change, to name a few—it’s easy to see our successes as a drop in the bucket. For example:
We are not shying away from the challenges—and neither are institutions and communities.
By expanding our Good Food network, building alliances, and engaging in sometimes-difficult conversations, we are building collective power and advancing creative solutions for a more just, equitable, and sustainable food system.
We may have a long way to go, but we have a vision and a path. Join us.
GET IN TOUCH
We'd love to hear from you.
goodfoodpurchasing.org
/center4goodfood
@center4goodfood
@goodfoodcities
You can reach out with questions or follow us for the latest from the Center for Good Food Purchasing.
For updates from local coalitions on their work, follow the Good Food Cities accounts below:
goodfoodcities.org
/goodfoodcities
@goodfoodcities
INTRODUCTION
REFERENCES
COMMUNITIES SHAPE THE VISION
INSTITUTIONS LEAD THE WAY
CHARTING A BETTER FOOD FUTURE
REFERENCES
WHAT IS VALUES-BASED PROCUREMENT?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Center wishes to thank the following individuals and organizations whose vision, hard work, and persistence have made the impacts shared in this report possible:
Core national partners: Real Food Media, Food Chain Workers Alliance
Local partners*: Austin (City of Austin Office of Sustainability), Boston (Massachusetts Farm to School, Health Care Without Harm), Buffalo (Massachusetts Avenue Project), Chicago (Chicago Food Policy Action Council), Cincinnati (Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center), Denver (City of Denver), Los Angeles (Los Angeles Food Policy Council), New York (Community Food Advocates, New York City Mayor's Office of Food Policy), Oakland (Oakland Food Policy Council), Philadelphia (City of Philadelphia), San Diego (San Diego Food System Alliance), San Francisco / Bay Area (SPUR), Twin Cities (Land Stewardship Project), Washington DC (DC Greens)
*Organizations listed are lead partners and represent countless other local supporters. For more detailed information, visit goodfoodcities.org.
National partners: ASPCA, ChangeLab Solutions, Domestic Fair Trade Association, Farm Forward ,Friends of the Earth, HEAL Food Alliance, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future, Natural Resources Defense Council, Organization for Competitive Markets, Real Food Media, Slow Food USA, Union of Concerned Scientists, United Food and Commercial Workers
Interviews included in the report: Chef Ann Cooper, Ribka Getachew, Breanna Hawkins, Jorge López, Manuel Pérez, Anneliese Tanner, Rebekah Williams
CENTER FOR GOOD FOOD PURCHASING
GOOD FOOD PURCHASING PROGRAM
Staff: Tiffany Cheung, Schyler Cole, Alexa Delwiche, Sara Elazan, Lam Le, Colleen McKinney
Governance Board: Paula Daniels, Allison Hagey, Nathalie Laidler-Kylander, Joann Lo, Monte Roulier, Ricardo Salvador, Chuck Savitt, Douglass Sims, Wood Turner
ENROLLED INSTITUTIONS
This report was made possible by generous funding from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
REPORT PRODUCTION
Authors: Center for Good Food Purchasing with Real Food Media
Content production: Tanya Kerssen, Christina Bronsing-Lazalde, Colleen McKinney, Schyler Cole
Advisors: Alexa Delwiche, Paula Daniels, Anna Lappé
Design: Real Food Media
Video production: Junipero Productions with additional footage by Annie Bernstein and The W.I.N. Initiative
How to cite this report: Center for Good Food Purchasing with Real Food Media, The Good Food Purchasing Program: Toward a Good Food Future, Impact Report (2012-2019), January 2020, https://bit.ly/GFPPimpact2019
CREDITS