WHO WE ARE
The Center for Good Food Purchasing uses the power of procurement to create a transparent and equitable food system that prioritizes the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment. We do this through the nationally-networked adoption and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program by major institutions.
The Center manages the Good Food Purchasing Program, working with institutions to establish supply chain transparency from farm to fork and shift towards a values-based purchasing model.
The Center works with national partners and local grassroots coalitions in cities across the United States to build a cohesive movement in support of Good Food purchasing.
“Governments have few sources of leverage over increasingly globalized food systems – but public procurement is one of them. When sourcing food for schools, hospitals and public administrations, governments have a rare opportunity to support more nutritious diets and more sustainable food systems in one fell swoop.”
Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food (2014)HOW WE WORK
A just and more regenerative food system is possible when we face the same direction together. The Good Food Purchasing Program unites stakeholders from across the food system around shared values and strategy. Together, we:
INCREASE COORDINATION
and alignment in the food movement through comprehensive, metric-driven standards that reflect a shared vision and collective values.
ENHANCE CAPACITY
of local grassroots coalitions and support for local procurement policy efforts to ensure that public food contracts reflect community values.
ACTIVATE POLICY
to institutionalize buyers’ commitments to Good Food and supply chain transparency.
EMPOWER GOVERNMENTS
by sharing tools to make informed procurement decisions, set procurement targets, and measure impact.
LEVERAGE BUYING POWER
and increased supply chain knowledge to drive change in the food industry towards suppliers that support our values.
OUR TEAM
STAFF & BOARD
As Director of Operations, TIFFANY CHEUNG is responsible for optimizing the Center’s internal infrastructure and technologies to support sustainable expansion of the Good Food Purchasing Program.
Tiffany has over a decade of combined experience in Project Management and Finance. Directly before joining the Center, she was Director of Finance Optimization at Sony Pictures, where she oversaw the company’s portfolio of Finance and Procurement projects. She also led global projects focused on increasing operational efficiencies and streamlining processes, managing teams on the ground in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Tiffany is passionate about building an equitable and humane food system and promoting healthy and vibrant individuals, communities, and ecosystems. She is currently a peer counselor at W.O.M.A.N., Inc., providing support to people impacted by domestic violence. Tiffany has a B.A. in Business Economics and Minors in Accounting and Scandinavian Studies from UCLA.
PAULA DANIELS is Co-founder and Chair of the Center for Good Food Purchasing, a social enterprise non-profit founded in July of 2015 as a national spin-off from the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, which Paula founded in 2011. The Center for Good Food Purchasing uses the power of procurement to create a transparent and equitable food system that prioritizes the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment, through the nationally-networked adoption and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program by large institutions. There are numerous institutions in cities across the US enrolled in this Program.
She is a lawyer and public policy leader in environmental food and water policy, with extensive experience in developing and leading local, state and national environmental initiatives that include government, civil society, and private sector partners. Her most notable work is in urban forestry, green infrastructure (for stormwater management) and food system policy (all award-winning initiatives); she has also had key roles in other aspects of public policy and municipal infrastructure.
Paula has extensive experience in government: she served as Senior Advisor on Food Policy to Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles; as a Los Angeles Public Works Commissioner (a full-time executive position overseeing a large city department); a commissioner with the California Coastal Commission; appointed board member of the California Bay-Delta Authority (overseeing the California State Water Project); and as a commissioner with the California Water Commission.
She has received recognition through academic appointments and other awards, including: the Ashoka Fellowship (2018); the Resident Fellowship at the Bellagio Center of the Rockefeller Foundation (2016); the Stanton Fellowship of the Durfee Foundation (2012-2013); the Pritzker Environment and Sustainability Education Fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (2015); the Lee Chair in Real Estate Law and Urban Planning at UC Berkeley (2013); Top Ten People Making LA a Better Place (LA Weekly, 2012); 2012 Honoree, Green LA Coalition; Water Quality Leadership Award (LA Regional Water Quality Control Board, 2007); Environmental Leadership Award (California League of Conservation Voters, 2005); Super Healer Award (Heal the Bay, 2005).
Paula is a registered Native Hawai’ian.
LAM LE is an Analyst at the Center for Good Food Purchasing. Her work involves collecting and analyzing data, working with local partners and assisting institutions in meeting and complying with the Good Food Purchasing Standards, and supporting the Center’s current and future initiatives. Previously, Lam worked with the Green Team at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley to support and implement green-building projects. She was also part of the Zero Waste Team at Haas, where she focused on outreach and the education of zero-waste practices. Lam is a member and volunteer at the Berkeley Student Food Collective. She holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.
COLLEEN MCKINNEY is the Director of Engagement for the Center for Good Food Purchasing, where her focus is on the successful expansion and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program. She enhances program processes and infrastructure, facilitates individual and group technical assistance, oversees supply chain monitoring and verification, and contributes to strategic direction of the Center, including expansion, coordination with Governing Board and national campaign committee, resource development, branding and website development, and administration. Previously, she contributed to the Good Food Purchasing Program as a Policy & Program Associate at the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. She holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Southern California.
ZAINAB PIXLER joined the Center for Good Food Purchasing in 2020 as an Analyst. She conducts in-depth supply chain research and produces aggregate analysis and reports to inform institutions on strategies to shift sourcing and increase Program scoring and performance. Prior to joining the Center, Zainab managed the Retail Donation Program at the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. In this role, she worked with grocery retail partners to reduce food waste and to provide nutritious food to those experiencing hunger. Zainab has dedicated her career to ensuring everyone has access to nutritious and delicious food, and she brings that same passion to the Center. Zainab holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Supply Chain Management with a Minor in Food Studies from Syracuse University.
SUE WOODARD is the Executive Assistant for the Center for Good Food Purchasing, supporting the expansion and strengthening of the Center’s initiatives. She previously served as Caseworker and Co-Chair of Volunteers for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, where her primary focus was on effective distribution of the organization’s micro-lending program for service members across California’s Central Valley. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in Art History from Suffolk University.
TINA CASTRO is a Managing Partner and co-founder of Avivar Capital, bringing over 15 years of experience in the fields of finance and investment management. Tina co-leads the firm’s overall business activities and serves as an impact investment advisor to Avivar’s clients providing guidance on the development and execution of impact investing portfolios and funds.
Prior to founding Avivar, Tina spent more than five years as the Director of Impact Investing for The California Endowment (TCE) and prior to that, six years in the Investment Management Division at Goldman, Sachs & Co. At TCE, a health-focused private foundation with over $3 billion in assets, Tina developed financing vehicles and strategies that delivered solid financial returns, leveraged significant additional investment capital and supported TCE’s Building Healthy Communities goals. This included the California FreshWorks Fund, a $272 million public-private partnership loan fund to finance supermarkets and other forms of healthy food retail in underserved communities throughout the state as well as TCE’s $101 million Program-Related Investment portfolio focused on healthy food retail, community health centers, affordable housing and community lending.
Tina has designed and built impact investing portfolios and funds on behalf of clients ranging from large national and regional private foundations to local community foundations including authoring Impact Investing Policy Statements, Impact Investing Procedures Manuals and designing social and financial tracking systems using customized dashboards as well as conventional portfolio management systems.
Tina is a CFA Charterholder, has an MBA in Finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and an MA in International Affairs with a focus in International Business from the University of Miami. She earned a BA Cum Laude in International Relations with a focus in Latin America from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Tina currently sits on the board of Aeris Insight and is an Adjunct Instructor co-teaching a graduate course on impact investing at USC.
Allison lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and three kids. She is an avid runner, skier, and fair weather biker, who enjoys chasing her children with kale and strawberries from her garden.
JOANN LO is a union organizer with an entertainment industry union. She was the Co-Director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance for 10 years, until October 2019, and was the first staff member of the Alliance when she began in November 2009. The daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, she graduated from Yale University with a degree in Environmental Biology and has organized with both unions and a worker center. In 2000 Joann was one of two staff who started the Garment Worker Center, and she organized with garment workers in Los Angeles who led a successful campaign against retailer Forever 21, memorialized in the Emmy-winning documentary “Made in L.A.” In 2005 Joann joined Enlace, an alliance of worker centers and unions and a year later became Co-Director. Joann is a member of the Leadership Circle of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Domestic Fair Trade Association, the City of Los Angeles’ Sweatfree Advisory Committee, and the Enlace Institute Advisory Board.
Before coming to UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for food, health, and well-being with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In this capacity, he was responsible for conceptualizing and managing the Foundation’s food systems programming. He partnered with colleagues to create programs that addressed the connections between food and health, environment, economic development, sovereignty, and social justice.
Prior to that, he was an associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University. While at ISU, Dr. Salvador taught the first course in sustainable agriculture at a land-grant university, and his graduate students conducted some of the original academic research on community-supported agriculture. He also worked with students to establish ISU’s student-operated organic farm, and with other faculty to develop the nation’s first sustainable agriculture graduate program in 2000; Dr. Salvador served as the program’s first chair. Dr. Salvador also worked as an extension agent with Texas A&M University.
Dr. Salvador has appeared on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show and has been quoted inThe Boston Globe, The New York Times, Politico and many other outlets. Dr. Salvador was named a 2013 NBC Latino Innovator and received the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award in 2014. He was also an author of a 2014 op-ed in The Washington Post calling for a national food policy, which is changing how many think about food and farm policy.
Dr. Salvador earned a B.S. in agricultural science from New Mexico State University. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in crop production and physiology from Iowa State University.
Chuck founded Island Press to accelerate the capacity of those organizations and individuals working on these issues to think and work across traditional academic and professional disciplines. During his time at Island Press they published more than 1000 titles by leading scientists including Edward O. Wilson, Gretchen Dailey, Paul Ehrich, Jane Lubcheco, as well as policy and thought leaders such as Bruce Babbitt, Gabe Klein and Jan Ghel. With each of these author’s work, Island Press helped to introduce new ideas that changed their fields.
Healthy food systems have been a personal priority for Chuck’s work and Island Press and he was honored to be asked to join the Center’s board. He hopes that his strategic communication skills could help spread the word about the it’s important work.
Wood brings over 20 years of experience in corporate sustainability, environmental management, and consumer engagement. Most recently, he was on the executive team at organic yogurt pioneer Stonyfield Farm as the company’s VP Sustainability Innovation. Prior to that, he was founding executive director of Climate Counts, an international NGO focused on measuring and scoring the world’s largest consumer companies on their concrete, enterprise-level responses to climate change. Wood has consulted to brands, elected officials, and public agencies on mobilizing the public around ideas that improve the environment and build community, including the start-up of a groundbreaking curbside food waste recovery program, the expansion of carshare program access to underrepresented communities in the Puget Sound area and Los Angeles, development of an early shuttle program for Bay Area biotech workers, and a citizen engagement program that nearly resulted in innovative fixed-rail for Seattle. Early in his career, he worked with the plastics industry in the policy and product stewardship arenas and was later instrumental in developing Urban Ecology’s “Blueprint for a Sustainable Bay Area.” He worked for many years on the alignment of economic and recreation demands with wetland, riparian, and wildlife corridor conservation in the Pacific Northwest.
PARTNERS
In cities across the country, the Center for Good Food Purchasing works 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.
NATIONAL PARTNERS
Core national partners include Food Chain Workers Alliance and Real Food Media.
Food Chain Workers Alliance supports local partners around organizing and coalition-building, including strategy, tactics, and leadership development.
Real Food Media supports communications, telling local and national stories of impact, and supporting local coalitions to build public support for the Program.
A National Campaign Committee of leading national food and farm organizations support expansion by sharing expertise and resources on advocacy, policy, the program values, research, impact evaluation, communications, coalition building and much more.
LOCAL PARTNERS
Local lead partners represent place-based coalitions, ensuring the work is grounded in local priorities, coordinating coalition-building and campaign development, and facilitating political and institutional relationships.
Local institutional partners commit to implementing the Good Food Purchasing Program values and framework, championing the program internally, participating in the multi-phased assessment process, and using assessment results to guide purchasing shifts in each of the values.
AUSTIN, TEXAS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
CINCINNATI, OHIO
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
TWIN CITIES, MINNESOTA
ANCHORS IN ACTION PARTNERS
Learn more about Anchors in Action, an alliance with Health Care Without Harm and Real Food Challenge that aims to drive food system change by unifying demand within and across institutional networks for supply chains that benefit all people, especially underserved and marginalized communities.
OUR SUPPORTERS
Support for the Center for Good Food Purchasing is provided in part through the generosity of the following funders:
- 11th Hour Project
- Battery Powered
- Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation
- Dr. Bronner’s
- The Kresge Foundation
- Michael and Susan Dell Foundation
- Panta Rhea Foundation
- The Rockefeller Foundation
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
We would also like to thank Community Partners for their fiscal sponsorship.
GOOD FOOD HEROES
Food Day has always been a time for reflection and appreciation; it is a time to recognize and celebrate our outstanding community partners who commit themselves to building equitable and sustainable food systems. It was started decades ago as a way to raise awareness about the issues in our food system. Since we began our work, we have celebrated Food Day by honoring those who work toward sustainable, healthy, and equitable food systems. This year, we can think of no better group to honor than the frontline, essential workers who have continued growing, harvesting, processing, transporting, preparing, and serving food throughout the pandemic.
We are proud to name as our 2020 Good Food Heroes:
- Farm and food chain workers, the backbone of our food system, who are standing up for the rights of the millions of workers risking their lives.
- Local farmers and food businesses, who have navigated disruptions, shifting their business models at a moment’s notice.
- School districts and school food service teams who reworked their food service operations to provide emergency food services.
- Emergency food providers who scaled up exponentially, serving record breaking numbers of community members.
- Local government leaders who worked round the clock to developing emergency response feeding strategies.
JOBS & INTERNSHIPS
The Center for Good Food Purchasing is not currently hiring.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing is a project of Community Partners.