The Good Food Purchasing Program is a coordinated, nationally networked initiative that harnesses the power of procurement to create a transparent and equitable food system, which prioritizes the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment.
The Good Food Purchasing Program provides a framework for building a unified national movement and bridges individual efforts in cities across the United States. It taps into the existing work of local multi-sectoral coalitions of labor unions, food and worker justice organizations, environmental, public health advocates, and animal welfare groups, and agencies in each participating city to ensure the policy addresses local needs and builds local ownership.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing was created in 2015 as the home for the Good Food Purchasing Program. The Center works closely with national partners, local food policy councils and grassroots coalitions, food service operators, governmental administrators, and elected leaders in cities across the United States to build a cohesive movement in support of Good Food purchasing.
To support successful implementation over time, the Center manages the Good Food Purchasing Program and helps participating institutions to:
- establish supply chain transparency from farm to fork
- evaluate how current purchasing practices align with Good Food Purchasing Standards
- support goal setting and provide technical assistance toward helping institutions achieve their goals
- measure progress regularly
- celebrate success in shifting to values-based purchasing.
The Center issues a Good Food Leader seal to participants that recognizes their progress toward the highest standard of values-based purchasing.
Learn about the Good Food Purchasing values in the Values section of our website.
While many procurement policies and initiatives focus on local or sustainable purchasing, the Good Food Purchasing Program sets a baseline standard in each of the five value categories to ensure that Good Food purchasing decisions incorporate a holistic set of considerations.
The model builds on various procurement priorities that are common in many institutions, such as local preferences and sweat-free purchasing, and brings these under a unified framework. By incorporating strong labor standards as an equal value, the Good Food Purchasing Program is one of the most comprehensive sets of food purchasing standards available.
Since institutions have varying priorities and constraints, the Good Food Purchasing Program uses a tiered, aspirational model (similar to LEED Green Building Certification) to provide institutions the flexibility to meet goals in each value category using practical priorities and timelines.
Institutions commit to:
- Meet targets in each value category, including Equity, Accountability, and Transparency, as outlined in the Good Food Purchasing Standards.
- Establish supply chain transparency to the farm of origin that enables the commitment to be verified and tracked over time.
- Incorporate the Good Food Purchasing Standards and reporting requirements into all new bids and contracts.
- Participate in the Good Food Purchasing Program to verify compliance, measure progress, and celebrate success.
A Good Food Purchasing Policy is an expression of an institution’s values and a formal commitment to leverage its purchasing power to support local economies, nutrition, a valued workforce, environmental sustainability, and animal welfare.
Once an institution adopts a Good Food Purchasing Policy, it works with the Center for Good Food Purchasing to implement the Good Food Purchasing Program.
The Good Food Purchasing Program provides a comprehensive set of tools, technical assistance, and rigorous, independent verification to support institutions that have adopted the Good Food Purchasing Policy meet their goals over time.
When an institution adopts the Policy, it applies only to the adopting institution. For example, when the City of Los Angeles adopted the Good Food Purchasing Policy in 2012, it applied only to the City Departments that purchase food (including the Recreation & Parks Department, Department of Aging, Convention Center, etc.). Check out more details about the cities that have adopted the policy and have active campaigns on the Good Food Cities page. However, cities and counties that adopt Good Food Purchasing Policies often use their leadership to bring other local food purchasers into the Program, as a shared framework can help all purchasers in a region communicate and coordinate more effectively with suppliers and vendors about their values and the types of products they’re seeking.
The Good Food Purchasing Program is aspirational, in that it rewards progress and recognizes that change takes time. When a local city adopts the Policy, it includes ongoing monitoring of Good Food purchases and provides the institution and local stakeholders with information to ensure that goals are being met.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing provides an annual independent analysis of an institution’s purchasing data and provides individualized, branded materials to institutions that meet the scoring baseline in all five value categories. Scoring requires access to complete line item purchasing records, which institutions request from their vendors and/or distributors. The Center for Good Food Purchasing can also assist with identifying what records are needed and how to obtain them.
Learn more about success and impacts on our Success page.
Not necessarily. Evidence from Los Angeles Unified School District shows that institutions can improve food quality, without increasing costs and in some cases, actually decreasing costs through simple changes to their purchasing decisions.
Some food products may be more expensive, but there are many creative strategies that institutions employ to offset potential cost increases, such as shifting toward local producers to reduce travel and storage cost of perishables or redesigning menus to reduce relatively more expensive meat purchases and redirect to produce and alternative proteins. The Center for Good Food Purchasing can advise on which strategies may work best for an institution based on budget, current purchasing patterns, and short and long-term goals. The Center can also connect an institution to one of our many expert partners engaged in value chain innovations for additional technical support.
Program participation requires an investment in time for the institutions and Center for Good Food Purchasing staff. The Center for Good Food Purchasing will work with each institution to estimate the amount of time anticipated for participation and develop a customized projection of Program costs to the institution.
LOCAL COALITIONS/FOOD POLICY COUNCILS: Local coalitions play critical roles in the adoption and implementation process. These coalitions are organized into a network as part of the Good Food Purchasing Program, which provides opportunity for shared learning and trans-local coordination. Additionally, Food Chain Workers Alliance, a lead Good Food Purchasing Program partner, is available to provide trainings on coalition and movement-building, racial equity and justice along the food chain, and assist in developing local alignment as it relates to each of the five value categories. Connect with the resources page on the campaign site to get started.
INSTITUTIONS: A wide range of materials and technical assistance opportunities are available to institutions that participate in the Good Food Purchasing Program, including templates and processes for gathering purchasing data, customized branded materials to advertise the initiative to constituents, access to preferred supplier lists of producers who meet the highest levels in each value category, suggested bidding and contract language, and individualized technical support to set and meet Good Food Purchasing goals. See our resources page for further information about support and documentation available to institutions throughout the process.
The Standards were designed to support holistic and equitable food system change, with the recognition that meaningful shifts in the way food is produced happens best when all voices are in the conversation. All five values are equally weighted and should be implemented together. Some categories lend themselves to modifications, such as Local Economies, where the definition may depend on factors such as local production capacity. Get in touch with the Center to learn more about what options are available to modify the Standards.