The University of California (UC) system faces significant barriers in achieving its goal of 25% sustainable food procurement across all campuses and health centers. The UC Global Climate Leadership Council Sustainable Food Sourcing (GCLC) initiative engages UC campuses and academic health centers to align definitions, data collection, and reporting on sustainable food procurement.
Project Goals
- Advance the expansion of sourcing from sustainable food producers and enterprises in UC food service operations.
- Assess the key barriers and introduce recommendations for improving overall reporting and sourcing practices that integrate strategic systemwide sourcing and campus-specific secondary contracts and data collection.
Project Objectives
Phase I
- Identify what it would take to achieve 25% sustainable food spend for campuses and 30% sustainable food spend for health centers by 2030.
- Provide technical training and support for Global Food Initiative Sustainable Food Fellows in implementing site specific engagement in data collection, reporting, and evaluation.
- Facilitate technical assistance to campus and health sites for sustainable sourcing.
- Identify and support pilots utilizing a new data tracking platform for campuses in concert with UCOP Procurement and the senior commodity food manager.
- Review and improve vendor contracts in collaboration with UC Procurement.
- Host campus and health center convenings in 2024 and 2025 to promote greater sustainable food literacy and project awareness and envision priority areas for future phases
Phase II
- Expand tracking and feedback in concert with UCOP procurement and the senior food commodity manager.
- Facilitate technical assistance on sourcing, new sustainable food supply chain vendors, and contract advances.
- Support academic health centers and campuses in transitioning to new purchasing strategies, more sustainable sourcing, and cataloging.
- Host food sourcing convenings to share opportunities, challenges, and best practices and review next steps.
- Conduct detailed cost analysis of shifting from conventional to sustainable proteins and produce across the UC system and develop sustainability and social equity metrics to evaluate the impact of UC sourcing 25% of its food from sustainable and small and diverse enterprises. Develop clear outcomes for the UC in order to ensure site leads and systemwide leadership can speak to the implications of achieving this goal.
- Provide technical training and support for Climate Sustainable Food Fellows in implementing site specific data collection and reporting/evaluation, as well as student and community engagement on sustainable food.
- Develop a Phase II project impact report providing insights on barriers and recommendations for improving regional and systemwide sustainable food sourcing to continue to build momentum to reach the Sustainable Practices Policy goal of 25% sustainable food sourcing.
For more details please contact Tim Galarneau tgalarne@ucsc.edu or 831-359-8861.