Purchasing Power—A “Good Food” Procurement Toolkit

The toolkit outlines strategies for institutions to shift toward sustainable and equitable food procurement, using the Good Food Purchasing Program as a model. It emphasizes the importance of diverse coalitions, the use of food hubs to connect small farms with large purchasers, and the potential for cost-neutral implementation through operational changes. The document provides detailed frameworks for collecting baseline and annual data from vendors and institutions to measure impacts on local economies, sustainable farming practices, and nutritional quality.

• Building diverse coalitions is essential for generating momentum and ensuring accountability in procurement policy implementation. In Los Angeles, the Teamsters labor union was pivotal in both the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program and in maintaining pressure on political leaders due to the policy's labor protections and wage increases.
• Institutions can bridge the gap between small-scale producers and large-scale purchasing needs through farmer cooperatives and intermediate channels such as food hubs. As of 2014, there were approximately 222 regional food hubs in the United States, with an average annual revenue exceeding $3 million.
• Sustainable and fair procurement can be cost-neutral through strategic operational changes. For instance, the Oakland Unified School District reduced annual food costs by $42,000 by reformulating recipes, training staff, and significantly reducing meat and dairy purchases.
• The rebate pricing system, where food service management companies receive incentives for high-volume purchases from approved vendors, creates a significant barrier to new procurement standards due to a lack of transparency.
• Effective measurement of a procurement policy's impact requires detailed annual data collection, including itemized records of products, the full supply chain from distributor to farm of origin, and specific farming practices such as cover cropping, no-till, and crop rotation.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (n.d.). Purchasing Power—A “Good Food” Procurement Toolkit. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/purchasing-power-toolkit-ucs-2017.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Purchasing Power—A “Good Food” Procurement Toolkit. n.d. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/purchasing-power-toolkit-ucs-2017.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Purchasing Power—A “Good Food” Procurement Toolkit |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/purchasing-power-toolkit-ucs-2017.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientistsndpurchasing, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Purchasing Power—A “Good Food” Procurement Toolkit}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/purchasing-power-toolkit-ucs-2017.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }