By Amelia Keleher & Jessi Silverman, CSPI
City governments play a vital role in their communities, both as major employers and as providers of a wide variety of services to residents. To help increase access to nutritious foods and beverages, cities are adopting Healthy Food Purchasing policies that ensure healthy options are available in public spaces — from municipal offices to public parks to daycare facilities.
These policy solutions require cities to adopt nutrition standards for food sold or served on city property and by city agencies, such as vending machines or concessions in city worksites and parks, municipal hospitals, correctional facilities, shelters, and city-operated feeding programs for low-income individuals. Because public feeding programs disproportionately impact low-income individuals who are at higher risk of diet-related diseases, providing access to healthy foods in these programs is essential.
While CityHealth’s Healthy Food Purchasing criteria are rooted in best practices, there are additional strategies cities can employ to craft policies that carefully consider who benefits and who might be disadvantaged. By centering equity throughout policy development and implementation, cities can help avoid unintentionally widening existing gaps in healthy food access for individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color, as well as for people who are low-income, unhoused, or incarcerated.
Avoiding Gaps in Healthy Food Access
For people who work in or otherwise interact with city facilities and programs, cities should adopt comprehensive policies that ensure all food purchased and served by a city adheres to Healthy Food Purchasing guidelines — a requirement for a CityHealth gold medal. Otherwise, city procurement policies can potentially widen gaps in access to healthy foods if these options are only added in settings primarily serving people who already have reliable access to healthy food.
For example, Philadelphia’s nutrition standards extend to all city agencies and contracts — including jails, shelters, education facilities, special events, and feeding programs — and stipulate what types of foods can be purchased.
Going Above and Beyond
Providing equitable access to healthy food across public spaces is vital to ensure we’re not contributing to health disparities. Cities can also go beyond CityHealth’s criteria and improve access to healthy options by:
- Ensuring vending and other grab-and-go venues offer eligible food items that are accessible to people who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
- Making healthy food and beverage options available to night shift workers who may work outside of cafeteria hours, including ensuring access to free tap water, healthy vending machine options, and places to store food and beverages brought from home.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), CityHealth’s partner for Healthy Food Purchasing, provides resources with guidance on how to tailor policies to different food service settings in its Healthy, Values-Aligned Government Food Purchasing and Food Service Toolkit.
Beyond Gold: Strategies for Inclusive Procurement
Often, city food or food service vendor selection criteria systematically exclude small and socially disadvantaged vendors who cannot compete with the economies of scale that enable large and historically white-led vendors to remain profitable when meeting nutrition and other quality standards. Smaller organizations, including those led by immigrants, people of color, women, or other disadvantaged groups may also face challenges in meeting the volume of supply required by institutional food service contracts.
Cities can remove these barriers by:
- Soliciting values-driven food procurement bids from multiple smaller vendors. Additional guidance on values-aligned food procurement bids and contracts can also be found here.
- Providing technical assistance to smaller vendors, including helping identify products or adapting recipes to meet nutrition standards.
For example, in 2018, Boston launched a disparity study to understand what percentage of city contracts and spending were going toward business opportunities for women and people of color. The study found that 11% of city contracts were with minority- and woman-owned businesses. This informed the goal of “[utilizing] at least 25% minority- and woman-owned businesses across all contracts awarded in any fiscal year.” As part of Boston’s commitment to healthy and values-aligned food purchasing, the city developed training for city employees around marketing, outreach, and equitable procurement.
In 2019, Boston adopted the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) guidelines, which earned the city a silver policy medal. The GFPP’s values include equity, transparency, and accountability; local and community-based economies; environmental sustainability; a valued workforce; animal welfare; and community health and nutrition. While the program goes beyond CityHealth’s Healthy Food Purchasing medal criteria, it serves as an example of how Boston has taken additional steps to foster a more racially just food system and serve healthier meals in public institutions.
Beyond Gold: Expanding Access to Culturally Appropriate Foods
Accommodating religious dietary restrictions and culturally preferred foods can help cities meet the dietary needs of all residents, especially for city employees and those who depend on public institutions for weekly or daily meals.
Shifting to healthier menus may unintentionally have a bias toward the cultural cuisine of the dominant culture. Implementing menus following a dominant cultural cuisine may result in excluding foods that meet diverse consumers’ cultural preferences and faith-based or medical dietary restrictions, including a wide variety of Indigenous foods, and foods from across the African diaspora. City food service operators can instead incorporate or adapt menu items that meet nutrition standards as well as the traditions and preferences of the population they serve.
Cities can also look to the example of some school districts:
- In Cambridge, Massachusetts, public schools started serving halal meals in January 2020 to meet the needs of Muslim students who observe a halal diet.
- Similarly, the Halal School Meals Network (HSMN), a community-led initiative in Portland, Maine, is serving certified halal meals to three K-12 districts to ensure equitable access to Maine’s universal school meals. The HSMN is also committed to prioritizing local and sustainably sourced ingredients from Black, Muslim, and immigrant farmers and producers.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Cultural Food Preferences in Food Service page is a helpful resource for those interested in learning more about culturally-preferred foods and faith-based dietary guidelines.
Consulting Directly with Communities
A best practice in equity-centered policy development is to collaborate with communities who would be directly impacted. Questions for decision-makers to consider throughout the development of a Healthy Food Purchasing policy and implementation process include:
- How will key stakeholders be identified and how will community leaders and experts be compensated for their time and contribution to the policy-making process?
- Who will be most impacted by the policy change
- How will the success of the policy be evaluated?
- What are potential unintended consequences and how will they be addressed?
- How will cities ensure equitable access to culturally preferred foods and foods that meet faith-based dietary guidelines?
For example, in 2008, New York City (NYC) introduced Food Standards for all city agencies. A recent update to the standards requires soliciting annual feedback from each program’s client population regarding “cultural preferences, taste, and food quality.” City agencies must take this feedback into account when planning their menus. NYC also engages community members through a strong partnership with the NYC GFPP coalition, which comprises representatives from various key stakeholder groups.
Equitable Policies Take a Multi-Pronged Approach
Healthy Food Purchasing policies offer numerous benefits; however, as discussed above, when equity is not centered throughout the policy development and implementation processes, it can result in a myriad of unintended consequences. Equity-centered policymaking demands more than simply adding the words to plans or initiatives and cannot be an afterthought. We encourage city leaders to take a multi-pronged approach to ensure their Healthy Food Purchasing policies are thoughtful, strong, culturally appropriate, and equitable.
Amelia Keleher is a policy associate and Jessi Silverman is a senior policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
