The Buy Better Food Campaign
for sustainable food on the public plate
We are a Europe-wide coalition of more than 100 members, calling for public procurement rules that work for the environment, consumers, and workers, and that provide healthy food to all European citizens in public places such as schools, hospitals and elderly care homes.
Our Vision is that, by 2030, Europe's food system is healthy for both people and the planet, based on sustainable and fair food production on healthy land, providing healthy food for all.
Sustainable Food Procurement can play a pivotal role in driving food system transformation in Europe and beyond.
Timeline
Open Food Conference and Procura+
Buy Better Food organised the session “Raising the bar: public procurement role cultivating healthy, just and sustainable EU food systems” at the Open Food Conference in Leuven (Belgium), to convince the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU that sustainable public food procurement is a reality. In March, Buy Better Food also organised a session on “Transforming Food Systems through Minimum Standards” at the Procura+ Conference in Lisbon. Small changes have a big impact and cities and researchers explained to us how.
Open Letter to Ursula von der Leyen
In January 2024 the core team of Buy Better Food, together with several European organisations, sent a Joint Letter to President Ursula von der Leyen and the European Commission calling for a long-lasting legacy of the EU Farm to Fork strategy through sustainable public food procurement (SFP).
Buy Better Food in the media
Public procurement has the opportunity to incentivise more organic, sustainable and local production, leading to healthier diets and a fairer distribution of food in society. It is therefore high time that the EU sets targets to promote organic, sustainable and regional food in public canteens, in hospitals and in schools!
Sarah Wiener, Former MEP (Greens), chef and organic farmer
Procurement officers are one of the keys to making tenders more sustainable. We have a unique opportunity to create the much needed changes to the food system. As a procurement lawyer and public purchaser you can bring the political goal to life through small changes in the tender document, which may be decisive in making the food chain more sustainable (also in distant countries).
Betina Bergmann Madsen, Chief procurement officer in the municipality of Copenhagen
Public food has the enormous potential to create a virtuous interplay between economic development and social inclusion, bringing to the front the unique role of local authorities in shaping up new (and much needed) constituencies around the objectives of sustainable development.
Roberta Sonnino, Professor of Sustainable Food Systems at Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey
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