Community Champions for Safe, Sustainable, Traditional Food Systems

Source: Kathleen Yung, Casey Neathway

Year: 2019

“This study will describe how the First Nations Health Authority supported increasing access to the processing and sharing of safely preserved traditional foods through the facilitation of a Community Champion model and the development of accompanying resource materials. Engaging Community Champions recognized the positive social impacts of sharing foods and traditional food systems, including access to nutrient-rich harvested foods, while the curriculum development and engagement of environmental health professionals ensured advice given would lead to decreased risks of foodborne illness.”

From individual action to systems change: Instituting values-based food procurement

Source: Nourish
Year: 2020

Nourish aims to use the power of food to build health for people and the planet. Our Transition Practice Studies highlight the work of Canadian healthcare institutions innovating food culture and practice to advance this aim.

The City of Thunder Bay procures food in ways that enhance the social, economic, cultural, and environmental well-being of the community.

Read online the full Transition Practice Study and download the Executive Summary.

Traditional Food as Medicine at Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre

Source: Nourish
Year: 2020

Nourish aims to use the power of food to build health for people and the planet. Our Transition Practice Studies highlight the work of Canadian healthcare institutions innovating food culture and practice to advance this aim.

Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win provides holistic, culturally responsive and appropriate care (minoyawin) through programming and healing practices informed by Indigenous wisdom. Because “food is medicine,” a crucial part of this programming is serving Traditional foods (Miichim).

Read online the full Transition Practice Study and download the Executive Summary.

Transforming patient experience and reducing food waste through room service

Source: Nourish
Year: 2020

Nourish aims to use the power of food to build health for people and the planet. Our Transition Practice Studies highlight the work of Canadian healthcare institutions innovating food culture and practice to advance this aim.

CHU Ste-Justine in Montreal, Quebec implemented an on-demand room service model for hospital food services to eliminate food waste and increase patient satisfaction. They reaped the added benefit of enhanced staff satisfaction and the opportunity for sustainable procurement.

Read online the full Transition Practice Study and download an Executive Summary.

Plow to Plate: The Community Hospital as Change Agent

Source: New Milford Hospital, Connecticut
Year: 2012
Plow to Plate is a program that advocates healthy food as a direct path to disease prevention while promoting the local agricultural economy. It delivers a fully integrated, healthful food service program to patients, staff and the community, using fresh produce from local farms and shows results with increased patient satisfaction scores.

Purchasing Power: 10 Lessons on Getting More Local, Sustainable, and Delicious Food in Schools, Hospitals and Campuses

Source: Food Secure Canada & J.W McConnell Family Foundation
Year: 2017

The lessons stem from the experiences of eight projects from 2014-2016 and profile what we’ve learned about how to shift institutional food purchasing to sustainability–from defining local, to leveraging contracts, to building food cultures, to policy change–and what the opportunities are for scaling this work.

Download

Farm to Institution: The power of public sector purchasing

Source: Greenbelt Fund
Year: 2015

This case study explores how a public sector group purchasing organization leveraged its buying power to enable a local and sustainable cattle-processor to break into the institutional food service market.

Download the case study Farm to Institution.

Public Sector Purchasers as Value Creators in a Resilient Food System

Source: Hayley Lapalme
Year: 2015

This case study takes a systems mapping approach to illustrate the opportunity of institutional food buyers to influence food systems. It draws from the 3P Mentorship Program, an Ontario-based community of practice on public purchasing that preceded Nourish. Slides from Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium.