Institutional Purchasing Conference

Harnessing Food Purchasing Power
As a driver to help re-localize the food system
Vancouver Island /Coastal Regional Solutions
June 19-20, 2008
Vancouver Island University (formerly Malaspina U-C)
Nanaimo, British Columbia

Summary Report

Purpose of the Conference: 
Sandra Mark, Project Manager for the Islands Good Food Initiative presented an overview of the issues of concern and tracing the background to the work under way through the partnerships with publicly funded institutions and agencies.

Sponsors: 

 

Resource People:

Rosemarie Blackburn: Sustain UK      http://www.sustainweb.org/
After studying rural resources at university, Rosie initially worked in the event management industry. In 2000 she became the farmers' market coordinator in Surrey (a county in south east England) organizing markets, raising their public and media profile, and verifying farmers and producers to assure the public that the produce was genuinely local. Rosie went on to work as rural coordinator for Business Link Surrey, providing specialist advice and signposting to rural and farm businesses wanting to develop and diversify. At the same time she managed the Farm Business Advice Service for the south east region, on behalf of Defra (the government Dept for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), and was also involved with many aspects of supporting the rural economy. After a year's travel and work in New Zealand and Australia, Rosie now coordinates work on the Good Food on the Public Plate project, helping hospitals and care homes in London and the southeast of England to use more local, sustainable food.
Donovan Woollard, Director Business Development:  Offsetters Climate Neutral Society     http://www.offsetters.com/

Rosie's Presentation

Rosie's Additional Information

Donovan has 10 years of experience leading sustainability initiatives with firms in the utility, real estate development, and resource sectors. His experience includes the launch of a number of sustainability oriented start-up ventures and the development and application of market-based environmental quality and branding standards. He holds a Master of Business Administration, a Diploma in Community Economic Development, and a Bachelors (Honours) degree in Philosophy.

Donovan's Presentation

Kira BCSEA

My name is Kira Page I’m a student at McGill in environment and development. My background is in environment & sustainability, and this summer I was hired as a research and policy intern with the BC Sustainable Energy Association. My first project has been agriculture & food, so I’ve been digging into it over the last 6 weeks and really enjoying it.
BCSEA is a non-profit association of citizens, professionals and practitioners, committed to promoting the understanding, development, and adoption of sustainable energy and energy conservation and efficiency in British Columbia. So we’re trying to facilitate the transition to a sustainable energy future through education, advocacy and tangible community projects. We hold a vision of a future in which all of BC’s energy comes from clean, renewable, efficient sources.

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WORK GROUP RESULTS:

The participants broke into four workgroups on Friday afternoon.  The following work plans will be presented to the Institutional Food Purchasing Advisory committee to inform their agenda for fall 2008.

Best Practice in Sustainable Institutional Food Purchasing:

Rosie Blackburn met with a group and the following workplan was developed:

• Create case examples of the business case for sustainable food purchasing to assist procurement officers with making the case for local food purchasing
• Create wording for requests for proposal that will facilitate local food purchasing
• Reach out to other professional purchasers who purchase food to let them know about what we are learning about more sustainable ways to carry out purchasing.
• Facilitate more connections between producers and purchasers to help purchasers understand the issues faced by producers in the Island Coastal region.
• Educate procurement officers to the carbon advantage for local food

 Access to Finance:

Sandra Mark reported on the Access to Finance project soon to enter its second phase with a view to convincing ‘friendly funders’ to work together to develop a strategic approach to providing funding/financing for sustainable food system development in BC.

It was agreed that a meeting would be called with private financers to present financing cases of island food businesses that are now seeking investment.  This meeting will be led by Kathy Lachman and Sandra Mark. 

Carbon foodprint:

Donovan Woolard worked with a keen group of participants who recognized that having a system to document the reduced carbon footprint for local food could be a way to put local food into a new frame for institutions who are not allowed to privilege ‘local’ in requests for proposals.   Their workplan:

• Develop a foodprint accounting system
• Develop a research project to support the above activity
• Measure local food producers carbon foodprint and include this information in marketing materials to assist procurement officers make the case for local food

Food Charter:

Caryl Harper, Manager Disease Prevention & Health Promotion, VIHA, presented a preliminarily draft VIHA Food Charter. The idea for VIHA to develop a Food Charter came from the 2006 Social Determinants Conference held in Victoria.

This workshop was interactive and resulted in valuable feedback, including, editing the Charter document and identifying various processes for engaging a diverse range of organizational, community and people groups. The group also supported the idea of a VIHA Food Charter.  There was recognition that the potential outcomes from food charters are diverse and identified increasing local food purchasing by institutions and agencies as one of the target policy areas for consideration.
The group also discussed local Food Charters that are currently in various stages of progress such as the Regional Districts of Nanaimo, Comox Valley and the Capital. The opportunity to glean learnings from previous food charter development and outcomes was discussed and seen as important - specifically mentioned were Kaslo, Manitoba, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and the Capital.

Should you wish to contact VIHA regarding the process of the preliminary Draft Food Charter please contact Caryl Harper, at caryl.harper@viha.ca  . 

 Conference Evaluation: 

All but one person responding with evaluative comments reported that their expectations were met.  Comments included:  “stimulating, informative, worthwhile, great networking; excellent, positive and informative sessions; very interesting and a day well spent; keep it rolling; very interesting and dynamic group with some excellent knowledge and expertise; it was a pleasure to participate; a good cross-section of information; I am glad I was able to attend; the fire has been lit.” 

BACKGROUND documents:

 Contending with the Local Food Access Puzzle Reports:

Carbon/food:

Sustainable purchasing:

Food Charters: