Values Based Procurement
Group Members: Dave Ormsby, Jack Wertheimer, Julia Glennon
Public food procurement is the process by which institutions (such as K-12 schools, hospitals, and correctional facilities) acquire the goods and services they need to serve their communities. The Center for Good Food Purchasing is a national non-profit organization working to harness the purchasing power of these food dollars in order to create a more transparent and equitable food system. The purpose of this project is to provide the Center for Good Food Purchasing with a toolkit to support grassroots coalition engagement with policy makers and institutions working to implement values-based procurement through their participation in the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP). Procurement is a complex process and each municipality faces its own unique challenges. Through stakeholder interviews, data analysis, and rigorous research, the MENV team will identify barriers and opportunities and distill these into a collection of practical tools that will aid GFPP in their effort to grow a nationwide movement of public procurement motivated by values. Their deliverables will include a series of short case studies focused on identifying and exploring best practices in public procurement strategy, a comprehensive analysis of those case studies, and a landscape assessment tool that both prospective and current Good Food Purchasing coalitions may utilize to determine the procurement practices, decision making structures, and policy landscape that will support (or hinder) GFPP implementation in their city, county, or region.