Organic foods in public catering: Organisational development or a locomotive to boost organic sales

Summary

In many countries public procurement policies of organic foods have become a popular instrument to increase the sale of organic produce. However, unlike the relatively uncomplicated “organic” change process in private households, the processes related to implementation of foods in public food systems have proved to be quite complicated. In order to study the nature of these systems and their ability to implement organic consumption a study of the Danish Green Procurement Programme (GPP) method was carried out. The GPP aimed at supporting organic consumption in public catering. The study included document analysis, qualitative interviews and a questionnaire based survey among practitioners at catering and municipal level. The results show that organic conversion processes in municipal catering is a multifaceted process. The process is not only concerned with substituting conventional foods with organic ones but involves a number of significant spin offs and ramifications. Instead of being a simple replacement process the conversion also functions as a change opportunity in which public food systems can develop and innovate. However the Danish case also shows that if organic procurement policies should be a reliable alternative sales channel, it is important at all times to keep the goal of the conversion in mind and not to neglect the need for constant monitoring of the progress of the organic procurement policy in terms of actual amounts of organic products. The case shows that such monitoring is needed both at institutional, municipal and national levels.