‘Local and local organic food in schools and hospitals – contributing to the health of our nation’

Summary

Procurement of food within the public sector cannot be divorced from the industry that supplies it or the public demand that consumes it. The contents of this Report reflect the various perspectives of the partners who have produced it as well as outlining the wide range of issues involved in making sure that local food, organic where available, is served in our schools and hospitals.
All these perspectives and issues need to be brought together in order to deliver the potentially huge and positive outcomes that this work has identified. These outcomes, as the Report demonstrates, work across the economic, social and environmental agendas of Health and Education as well as Agriculture and Rural Development.
The key conclusions of the Powys Public Procurement Partnership are that sustainability has to be at the heart of ‘Best Value’ and the ‘Wales Improvement Programme’; that leadership at ministerial level is needed to co-ordinate a package of measures and to promote a cross–cutting approach to creative and sustainable public procurement of food; and that the same cross-cutting approach is needed at the local level to achieve real change