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.
Values-based purchasing
This phrase describes institutional purchasing that prioritizes a defined set of values beyond lowest cost. Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth, as part of the Anchors in Action alliance, aligned with other institutional sectors to develop a shared framework for values-based purchasing that includes local and community-based economies, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, valued workforce, and community health and nutrition.
Assemble your team
Because behavior change drives many food procurement strategies, you will need a group of involved stakeholders who are ready to change.
Follow this food purchasing criteria
Practice Greenhealth’s food purchasing criteria refer to the standards developed to guide food service operators in making food purchasing decisions that align with their organization’s values.
Strategies
Our food procurement strategies and recommended best practices will help your institution purchase food that aligns with your values and develop a procurement program that meets your goals and objectives. These strategies have been broken down into three categories: sustainable purchasing, local purchasing, and purchasing that supports social equity. While the implementation of these strategies as a whole will create the most robust impact, each individual strategy represents an opportunity for positive impact.
Practice Greenhealth offers live and on-demand events to introduce you to the strategies and Standard.
Each session guides you through applying the Healthy Food in Health Care Standard, a framework for health care institutions to collaborate with their community and supply chain stakeholders to build a just, healthy, and sustainable food system. Our experts give you an overview of each strategy, the purchasing target, and definitions. Each session features a Practice Greenhealth partner applying the guidance and a community collaborator.
