Farm to cafeteria table: The new local food frontier

该next time someone points to the need for more farmers’ markets as a way to help move local food from a trend to a substantive cultural shift, you might consider telling them about the power of institutional purchasing. It may sound less interesting and, on the surface, it certainly is. (Who doesn’t love buying purple carrots to the sound of a didgeridoo?) But bear with us.

公共和私营机构每年花费在食品数十亿美元。Schools, universities,hospitals, prisons, corporate cafeterias and senior care facilities share one thing in common — they prepare, cook and serve thousands of meals every day.

现在，一个冉冉升起的动作要说服这些机构采购从当地生产的食品的比例较高 - 其重点是farms, fishermen and牧场,遵循生态良好、社会just and humane practices. It’s called institutional food procurement, and while it might not have quite as much romance as some other elements of today’s Good Food Movement, some say this follow-the-money strategy could hold the key to transforming the American food system.

在公共机构的食品购买转变对不仅对当地经济产生重大影响的潜力，但对粮食的获取，根据阿曼达Oborne，在食品和农场的副总裁Ecotrust, an Oregon-based nonprofit that works to advance farm-to-institution initiatives in the Pacific Northwest.

当机构使它成为一个优先购买本地的，它们可以促进前所未有的创新和投资的整个供应链。

"We put the focus on the buyers with multimillion dollar food procurement budgets because even if they just redirect a couple of percentage points of their budget into the region, that’s going to drive change all the way through the [local] supply chain," said Oborne. In one example, chefs at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon可以订购整猪from local producers thanks to an innovative partnerships with a meat distribution company.

For Ecotrust and other farm-to-institution groups across the nation, the goals are twofold. First, they aim to sway large institutions with huge food budgets to leverage their purchasing power in support of small and mid-sized regional farmers, ranchers and fisherman as a way to boost the local economies — and to pivot away from consolidated global distributors such as西斯科。Second, and just as important, is to open up access to healthy, local and sustainable food for the populations generally served by public institutions.

“当地番茄将提供同样多的风味和营养价值，因为它会以一个富有的对冲基金经理，低收入幼儿园老师”萨里奇曼说，指标项目经理农场到机构新英格兰（精细）。“机构...饲料成千上万的经济困苦的家庭和个人的每一天。”

For the past five years, FINE has worked to connect local food distributors with institutions in the Northeast. Across the six New England states, institutions spend a total of more than $78 million per year on local food and an estimated 3.8 million people eat at institutions served by FINE. The organization has released the首先在一系列的报告（PDF）重点地区食品分销商和食品中心s — both the opportunities and barriers faced by small and large companies. According to those New England-based distributors FINE surveyed, together they moved over a billion dollars of food in 2012, of which $366 billion was sold to institutions. Nearly 90 percent believed sales of local food to institutions will continue to increase.

该farm-to-institution market holds more power to benefit farmers and fisherman than any other local food market, said Richman.

“当机构使它成为一个优先购买本地的，它们可以促进前所未有的创新和投资在整个供应链 - 并作出显著的经济影响，”她说。

Scale matters

并非所有本地农场都配备出售给机构。

一个t 30 acres,Stoneboat Farm在俄勒冈州Hillsboro资格作为一个小农场。杰西·尼科尔斯，谁农场与他的兄弟的土地，说他的业务已经从与机构建立伙伴关系中受益。目前，它提供大约一个月$ 5,000农产品的厨师在英特尔公司，仅五分钟下来从农场的道路。校园食堂企业每天服务数千名员工。

"Having an institutional client like this is really beneficial and makes things much more streamlined for us," said Nichols. "It saves us a bunch of deliveries to smaller accounts and makes a big difference in our workloads."

今后，Stoneboat农场想进入更多的机构合作伙伴关系。到目前为止，新生的尝试与学校食品服务程序连接并没有造成太大。

"It’s been difficult to partner with the larger institutions within the farm-to-school movement because of the sheer volume they need," said Nichols. "You have to think differently to buy local. You have to understand the local climate, be able to expect price and availability fluctuations based on what farmers have available. You have to be flexible. We’re not a big distributor that can have cheap prices all of the time."

在我国“AG-在中间人”的整个概念已经被掏空了。

That’s where mid-sized farms enter the picture. According toa new reportpublished by the Union of Concerned Scientists, local purchasing has a huge impact. The study, which centered on Iowa, found that if 25 percent of the 22,000 institutions and "intermediate markets" in the state procured local food, over $800 million annually would be generated for the state’s economy. If at least half of these local purchases came from midsized farms, they would support over 4,259 farms and potentially 12,320 jobs.

Oborne，在Ecotrust，同意支持中型农场，让他们可以“有意义”的合作伙伴，医院，学校和其他机构投资者，并提供食品的数量相一致，机构餐饮服务要求的重要性。

"It’s that midscale operation that would be ideally suited to building a strong regional food economy," said Oborne. "They’re a little bigger than the farmers’ market guys with bigger production, and a little more professional operations. Yet, the whole notion of 'ag-in-the-middle' in our country has been hollowed out."

To that end, Ecotrust is in the process of creating an infrastructure hub in Oregon, where midsized farmers can find support for many aspects of their business, from marketing to business planning.

物流 - 主要是为了让它在机构顺利餐饮服务董事前往当地的食物 - 是另一个挑战。

随着粮食系统的工作，我们在游泳溯流而上那么多的事情，但我认为这种努力必须作出巨大的可测量的差异的潜力。

“[餐饮服务董事]不起劳动是切片，切块和切碎，” Oborne说。"Their docks won’t allow for 50 different farmers in their own little vehicles to show up at any given time. They need huge volumes, consistently. Even the ones who are hyper-committed don’t really have the bandwidth to deal with these things."

出于这个原因，Ecotrust帮助发起的西北菜买家联盟，一个对等网络的各类机构餐饮服务董事：学校;医院;高等教育;辅助生活;更正;和公司的咖啡馆。会员在农场和机构厨房参观和见面去每季度份额的策略如何在制度层面当地采购。Oborne称这些尝鲜“真正的英雄和冠军。”

Swimming upstream in a time of consolidation

显然，如果公共机构的食品采购是实现可持续和本地采购，更多的工作要做转变。一个reportfrom John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future claims that the "vast purchasing power and educational opportunity provided by institutions for assisting in this transition remains to be tapped."

Why all the untapped potential? According to the report’s authors, the concentration of the food service management market has played a significant role. The largest management companies — Compass Group, Aramark and Sodexo — operate food services in about 45 percent of all North American institutional food service outlets to the tune of $33 billion in revenue.

餐饮distribution is equally consolidated Sysco and US Foods, the two largest "broadline" food distributors, bring in about $65 billion in combined annual revenue and dominate 75 percent of the national market. In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission提起行政申诉complaining that proposed merger between Sysco and US Foods would violate anti-trust laws.

与此同时，运动改革体制食品采购也出现在公共和私人领域都衡量成功。例如，胃口好管理有限公司, one of Compass Group’s subsidiaries (and the company that runs the cafe atWillamette University), requires its chefs to buy at least20 percent其肉，蔬菜等产品150英里半径范围内。

与此相关，派牧场，在加利福尼亚州的有机教育农场，有开始的私人客户包括斯坦福大学和谷歌为他们的员工提供膳食当地农产品伙伴关系。在谷歌独自一人，这相当于每日三餐员工约20,000。

在本系列的第一篇中，我们写的好食品采购政策在洛杉矶，加利福尼亚州最大的公立学区成为如何实现健康，可持续和以价值为基础的采购，每天服务超过65万餐模型。该Center for Good Food Purchasing通过Alexa的Delwiche领导，要采取行之有效的严格制度食品的采购政策的国家。

But that’s not where it ends. A number of other schools and other public institutions are working to move the local produce dial. The国家农场到学校网络andHealthcare Without Harmhave been chipping away at changing institutional food procurement for years. And in April, Nessa Richman of FINE convened more a dozen farm-to-institution practitioners and advocates from across the country in Washington, D.C. to launch the first national working group around the issue.

“随着粮食系统的工作，我们在游泳溯流而上那么多的事情，但我认为这样的努力，使在相对短期内巨大的可测量的差异的潜力，” Ecotrust的Oborne说。

It’s certainly worth a try.