THE CAMPAIGN
The Good Food Purchasing Campaign encourages large institutions to direct their buying power toward five core values – local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition – using the Good Food Purchasing Program to guide their efforts. The Program provides a flexible framework to support cities in creating benchmarks for procurement around the five values. In many cases, these goals build on existing local momentum to expand good food in the region and work in tandem with ongoing efforts.
Every city’s efforts are different, but there are key features that are critical to a campaign’s success:
“Our contracts are an expression of our values. We intend to use the contracting process to leverage important changes in the agricultural industry.”
WHY PROCUREMENT
Changing the food system means creating a system based on values. It means understanding relationships between distributors, vendors, and their suppliers and increasing transparency along the entire supply chain.
Every year, public institutions across the United States – from school districts to city governments – spend billions of dollars on food purchases. They have the opportunity to lead the movement for food system change and express their community’s values while influencing supply chains.
PARTNERS
In cities across the country, the Center for Good Food Purchasing, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, and Real Food Media work with a network of cross-sector partners at the national and local levels to expand the reach and impact of the Good Food Purchasing Program.
The Center manages the Good Food Purchasing Program, together with participating institutions to establish supply chain transparency from farm to fork, evaluate how current purchasing practices align with the Good Food Purchasing Standards, assist with goal setting, measure progress annually, and celebrate institutional successes in shifting towards a values-based purchasing model.
The Food Chain Workers Alliance is a coalition of worker-based organizations focused on improving wages and working conditions for all workers along the food chain and currently supports campaign development and the organizing of local, multi-sectoral coalitions who lay the foundation for GFPP adoption, implementation, and beyond.
Real Food Media supports collective strategy development with core partners and serves as a sounding board and strategic partner with local coalitions as they develop communications strategies to meet their campaign goals. Leading the direction of the key web and social media platforms for the Good Food Purchasing Program, Real Food Media collaborates with partners to share the impact of the Program far and wide through media, storytelling, and interactive reports.