10am to 12pm Eastern Time

This webinar is the sixth in a series of conversations hosted by Sustain Ontario relating to municipal level food policy in Ontario.

Local food procurement generally refers to purchasing initiatives, tools, or policy that function to increase the amount of local food purchased by any number of public institutions.  Each year, millions of public dollars are spent on food for municipally funded and organized facilities including public cafeterias, childcare centres, convention centres, and long term care facilities.  By looking for ways to redirect some of this money back into local food economies, there is a huge potential to build a more vibrant local food system.

We know that local food procurement is a very complicated and multifaceted topic, and by no means do we intend to cover everything in one webinar.  Instead, we have decided to address three themes that continue to come up from across our network, namely:

• The process of food purchasing for the public sector,
• Establishing local food purchasing policy, and
• Managing international trade regulations and existing purchasing policies.

We hope that by addressing these issues, we might encourage municipal leaders across the province to ask the right questions, think outside of the box, and develop more meaningful local procurement plans for the future.

Register now

Panelists

• Dan Munshaw, Manager of Supply Management for the City of Thunder Bay
• Hayley Lapalme, Program Designer and Facilitator for My Sustainable Canada
• Wendy Smith, Contract Specialist for MEALsource
• Sandra Hamilton, Business Consultant and Strategic Marketer
• Brendan Wylie-Toal, Greenbelt Fund BPS Grant Program Specialist

Discussion Facilitator

Janice Janiec, Project Manager Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance and lead consultant on Sustain Ontario’s Broader Public Sector Local Procurement Project