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.
Core team
Your core team should include food service staff (director), purchasing staff, and food service contractors and/or food service management company (FSMC) staff (food service managers and/or purchasers) if food service is managed by a third party.
Internal stakeholders
Care: sustainability manager, community benefits team, HR/employee wellness staff, marketing/PR, finance/contract management, and clinicians
Cafeteria: If food service is managed by a management company, the FSMC in-house staff (director, executive chef, etc.) will be internal stakeholders. FSMC regional/corporate offices may act as external stakeholders (see below).
Community: organizational or local vendor diversity program staff
Stakeholder input is essential to formulating a successful strategy to meet the needs of the organization more effectively, identify any early warning signs, and learn what issues are important to external individuals or organizations.
External stakeholders
- Care: Group purchasing organizations (GPOs): Purchasing/contract management staff may have to work with GPOs that manage contracts with food and materials suppliers to set up data-sharing agreements and facilitate getting new or alternative products onto contracts with GPO-contracted suppliers such as broadline distributors (e.g.. US Foods, Sysco, Performance Food Group, etc.).
- Cafeteria-suppliers (self-operated food service): Customer service managers and procurement staff from suppliers, including broadline distributors (see above), speciality distributors (fresh produce, bread, dairy , and beverage), food hubs, and direct relationships with producers (farms and food companies).
- Cafeteria-suppliers (managed food service): FSMC regional/corporate offices, including business development and purchasing, and FSMC primary suppliers (if different from above)
- Community: As described in Health Care Without Harm’s Farm Fresh Healthcare Project How-to Guide, community partners like food-focused nonprofits and food policy councils can offer local values-based supply chain expertise and can act as “social brokers,” using their trusted relationships to facilitate connections across the supply chain.
- This is also a good opportunity to engage local stakeholders with expertise in values areas to assist in achieving your organization's goals related to racial equity, local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare, and community health and nutrition
- Studies show that food prices do not take into account “hidden costs” of the food system’s impacts on human health, the environment, and social and economic inequity. Consult “true-cost” accounting resources, and consider integrating support from experts in accounting costs for food.
