This report is part of the EU-funded StratKIT project (Innovative Strategies for Public Catering: Sustainability Toolkit across Baltic Sea Region 2019-2021). The framework model shows how Public Procurement and Catering Service (PPCS) provisions depend on specific country-based legal and market contexts while administered by public authorities and operating as a bundle of activity centres or domains.

StratKIT is funded by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme.

The EU-funded StratKIT project is about making the procurement of public catering services more sustainable. Public authorities have a large purchasing power and have the ability to give clear signals to the market towards green growth and circular economy. However, public procurement is a complex task and good practices in the Baltic Sea region are mostly isolated. StratKIT brings together public authorities, catering service providers and researchers in a network to set up a toolkit and an online open knowledge platform for sustainable public catering.

The project is funded by the the Interreg Baltic See Region Programme.

The Sustainable Public Meal Toolkit provides experience-based advice on how to set up innovative strategies and activities for sustainable public procurement and catering services. The toolkit was developed by the countries in the Baltic Sea Region, but can be used in many more places due to the generic descriptions in the tools. Start the change in your municipality, your company, your school, your hospital, or elsewhere! The Toolkit was developed as part of the EU-funded StratKIT project.

This analysis has been done by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability as part of ‘Procurement across the Value Chain’ - project under the One Planet Network. It demonstrates that procurement, as part of the middle stage of the value chain, has significant influence over the other stages across the value chain. The objective of the analysis is to better understand how procurement can be used as a tool to support more sustainable food systems. The review resulted in the identification and curation of seven impact typologies across UN World regions:
● Sourcing local through fresh and seasonal food items
● Smallholder-friendly procurement
● Supporting a healthy and nutritious diet
● Reducing waste from food and packaging
● Fair employment conditions
● Sourcing organic produce
● Increase of plant-based food and supporting animal welfare

The StratKIT project has developed eight recommendations on Sustainable and Healthy School Food Procurement for national and EU policy makers as part of the Procura+ City Interest Group on School Food Procurement. These recommendations support the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Public procurers hold the power to influence the entire food value chain and through their decisions can affect both production and consumption practices. This position creates a strategic opportunity to leverage public sector demand for sustainable development. Seizing the potential, however, comes with great complexity as it requires innovation within the respective procurement system, connecting the actual procurement to a much wider process linking to policy goals and engaging various stakeholders.
The recommendations address the different stages of the food value chain to make it more sustainable: input industry, primary production, food processing & packaging, transport & logistics, retail, food service, individual consumption and finally, waste & disposal.

EC GPP Case Study - UNICA’s procurement of a food and beverage vending service with 64 machines in September 2019, through a concessions contract, resulted in four suppliers bidding for a five-year contract worth €210,000. This particular concessions contract is part of UNICA’s sustainability policy and aims to improve the services provided by the University in terms of environmental sustainability, through the reduced use of plastic and the promotion of circular waste management.

The aim of this paper written in the framework of the 'EU Food Policy Coalition (EU FPC) Public Procurement Task Force' is to provide five key arguments in favour of sustainable healthy food procurement to address the challenges of the EU food system. The paper seeks to provide strong evidence and thereby overcome any misconceptions about the gains of implementing sustainable food procurement in a comprehensive form.

As major procurers of food and catering services, public authorities can play a strong role in supporting sustainable production and distribution practices in the sector. By carefully integrating the impact of the food they purchase into procurement decisions, public authorities can significantly contribute to supporting environmental improvements in the sector whilst providing a nutritious diet to beneficiaries and supporting targeted producers. However, there is a lack of overview to which extend procurement can have a sustainable influence at which stage of the food value chain. ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability embarks on a new project as part of the UN One Planet Network SPP Programme. The main objective of the project is to provide an overview of procurement along the food value chain and understand how it addresses key hotspots towards shaping the sustainability of food production and consumption.
The ambition is to develop a set of recommendation and case studies written for procurers as well as policy-makers from across the globe, featuring an array of approaches from actors procuring food along the food value chain. In addition, findings and lessons learned will be consolidated in a set of recommendations.