Procurement for Good
Running from 2024 to 2028, the Procurement for Good project brings together four dedicated partner organisations with four pioneering food hubs to explore how to improve opportunities for food buyers in schools, hospitals, and other public sector organisations to include sustainable locally-sourced food in their menus.
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [Grant Number ES/Z502807/1] under UK Research and Innovation, Procurement for Good is a £1.9 million project that critically examines the conditions required for more sustainably produced food to be served on the public plate in the UK.
Working with food hubs, smaller scale producers and public sector buyers, the project aims to expand place-based public food procurement networks through collaborative practices, digital innovation and policy recommendations.
The Procurement for Good project is led by the Centre for Acroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University, collaborating with three key partner organisations: Garden Organic, Open Food Network UK and Social Farms & Gardens.
Central to the project’s work are four producer-based food hubs across England, Wales and Scotland:
- Cultivate in Wales
- Galloway Food Hub with Propagate in Scotland
- Cambridge Food Hub and Growing Communities in England
Through the project, here at the Open Food Network UK we will extend the functionality of our open-source digital platform to enable food producers to sell to public sector organisations through food hubs. Meanwhile, Garden Organic and Social Farms & Gardens will play a key role in supporting the food hubs and promoting knowledge exchange with other food hubs and with public sector buyers across the country.
You can learn more about our input and reflections on the project so far in the blog posts below. Have questions? Please get in touch with Jo da Silva here at OFN UK in the first instance.
