Public procurement is recognized in the Local Food Plan as one of the key levers that can support and encourage thriving local food ecosystems.

In this blog, Professor Moya Kneafsey, coordinator of the Procurement for Good project, reports back from the closing conference that summed up key learnings and recommendations of the Local Food Plan. The Plan constitutes the culmination of a two-year research and consultation process with food supply chain actors working at place-based, nation and UK wide-scales. It outlines a framework of actions for local and mayoral authorities, national governments and food and farming organisations to grow local and agroecological food supply chains.

It was a crisp sunny day for my trip to Sheffield to attend a workshop organized by theLand Workers Alliance to discuss some of the recommendations from the Local Food Plan.  On my train journey north, I reflected on how fitting it was for such an event to beheld in Sheffield, where so much work is underway to build a sustainable and healthy local food economy in the city – as described in this inspiring new Roadmap.

About 20 people assembled at the Regather premises and were welcomed with a hearty bowl of vegetable soup, sourced locally of course! First up was an overview of the key learnings from the two-year project to develop the Local Food Plan.  It was encouraging to see that public procurement is recognized in the plan as one of the key levers that can support and encourage thriving local food ecosystems.  We also heard from the Sustainable Food Trust, who have undertaken a review of local food definitions and come up with two contrasting local food system models – one being market-driven and the other community/social driven. The talk also touched on the role of monitoring and evaluation. I found this highly relevant to our project as we embark on the early stages of developing our toolkit for assessing and enhancing the sustainability impacts and social value of place-based public sector food procurement.  I had an opportunity to introduce our project and encourage those present to sign up to our newsletter!  The rest of the afternoon was spent in small groups discussing ideas and actions to take forward the recommendations in the Local Food Plan.  

There’s such a lot of innovative and inspiring work going on, and I came away from the workshop reflecting on how vital it is to share the learning and knowledge that is being developed.  It’s easier said than done, but mentorship and skills training were mentioned several times and hopefully our project’s food hub mentoring programme will help to contribute to this. Participants also emphasized the importance of building collaboration and relationships of trust amongst people involved in developing local food systems, whether this be locally or nationally.  I certainly agree, and hope that the gathering interest in sustainable public sector food procurement will provide a fantastic opportunity to build forward-looking and values-based collaboration between producers, hubs and public sector buyers.

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