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Event Recap – Institutional Procurement: A Path Toward Food System Resilience

On January 15th, the USDA Southwest Regional Food Business Center hosted a webinar on “Institutional Procurement: A Path Toward Food System Resilience.” The event included presentations from three Center partners, including Molly Riordan of Center for Good Food Purchasing, Maxie Blasini of Healthcare Without Harm, and Tim Galarneau of UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology. Speakers discussed their organization’s role in purchasing local, sustainable foods in hospitals, universities, and other large institutional settings. The webinar is part of the Center’s quarterly webinar series, where Center partners share best practices and innovative projects on essential topics related to business development and capacity assistance for local producers, farmers, and ranchers. 

Each speaker provided key takeaways, such as recognizing organizations’ role in implementing procurement criteria and scoring, shown through the Center for Good Food Purchasing Scoring System, to incentivize institutions to increase their purchasing of sustainable foods. The power of addressing challenges to institutional procurement through an equitable approach of multi-stakeholder collaboration with community partners, was exemplified by Health Care Without Harm’s discussion of their Anchors in Resilient Communities Initiative. The importance of detailed data tracking systems to provide institutions data as a value proposition to increase sustainable procurement, was discussed by the Center for Agroecology through their work in obtaining the UC Sustainable Food Goals. 

Attendees, representing a wide variety of organizations, were actively engaged throughout the webinar, as many sought input on how to increase benefits for farmers, ranchers, and food businesses they work with, while also improving the food quality and quantity provided by larger institutions. The next webinar will take place on April 16th and will focus on agriculture technologies for small and mid-sized farms and food businesses. Register: https://bit.ly/SWRFBCwebinar


Register for the Southwest Center’s next Webinar

Join the USDA Southwest Regional Food Business Center on April 16th from 3-4PM PST for our fourth webinar focused on agriculture agriculture and technology.

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About Valley Vision and the Southwest Regional Food Business Center

Valley Vision leads coordination, communication, and network development efforts for the Southwest Regional Food Business Center. The quarterly webinar series is part of Valley Vision’s efforts to share best practices and to foster a collaborative network among Center partners and other participants. 

The Southwest Regional Food Business Center, representing Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah, is one of twelve USDA Regional Food Business Centers nationwide developed in 2023 to provide coordination, technical assistance, and capacity building to help farmers, ranchers, and other food businesses access new markets and initiatives, as well as navigate federal, state and local funding and resources. With an extensive network of partners from academic, government, and community-based organizations, the Southwest RFBC is dedicated to prioritizing historically underrepresented communities and small to mid-tier businesses.

For more information about the USDA Southwest Regional Food Business Center and its initiatives, visit www.swfoodbiz.org. To stay updated on future webinars and events, be sure to subscribe to the Center’s newsletter: http://bit.ly/SWRFBC-Newsletter

USDA disclosures and guidance can be found at https://bit.ly/USDAdisclosures.

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