Environmentally sustainable businesses contribute to healthy ecosystems by improving soil health, increasing biodiversity, and reducing the carbon and water footprint of food production, while advancing public health and worker safety. Animal welfare encompasses all aspects of animals’ well-being, and high animal welfare is achieved when an animal’s physical, mental, and behavioral needs are met throughout its life.

While there are several ways to implement your procurement efforts, looking for products that carry third-party verified certifications and vetted label claims is a simple way to ensure you are supporting values-aligned suppliers through your purchasing. Below we’ve listed the third-party certifications and label claims that have been vetted and approved within each of the five value categories that Practice Greenhealth has determined as meaningful.

Your team will be strongest if it represents the interests of three important Cs: care, cafeteria, and community. As you move through this section, consider how care teams and clinical staff, cafeteria and food service teams, and the community – including patients, neighbors of your facility, and the local civic and business communities – can inform your process and outcomes.

This guidance uses the “plan-do-check-act” cycle as a framework for developing and implementing a successful food program. While this guidance focuses primarily on food procurement, much of what you will find below can also be applied to other food-related program areas. It is meant to help you build and assess elements of your food program one step at a time while adapting to new experiences and lessons learned.

Vibrant and resilient regional economies are a forum for communities to regain power in decision-making within their local food system and the land that supports it. In this guidance section, we outline best practices for supporting community wealth building and investment in local and diverse food businesses through your purchasing decisions.

Purchase locally, sustainably, and equitably produced foods to increase the quality of food you serve, support producers in your community, and build a healthy, sustainable, and resilient food system.

Our guidance leads you through a set of local, sustainable, and equitable food purchasing strategies for authentically and successfully planning and implementing food service programs that can be tailored to help you achieve your goals.

Build a strong base for your food efforts through progressive policies and plans, engaged and empowered teams, transformative community collaboration, and supportive public policy and programs.

Health care institutions have an opportunity to influence broad food system impacts for their patients, staff, and communities – but to realize this potential it is important to first set the foundation.