2.0 Policy Package

Healthy Food Purchasing

When cities have healthy food available on public property, we all have more opportunity to choose what’s best for our bodies. Cities that prioritize health in their food purchases make sure everyone has access to healthy choices in public places where we work, play, and learn — from municipal offices to public gyms to daycare facilities. It can also help cities save millions of dollars in preventable health care costs.

The Healthy Food Challenge

Millions of Americans struggle to eat healthfully, putting themselves at higher risk for unhealthy weight gain and diet-related diseases that diminish quality of life and drive-up health care costs.
A healthy diet is out of reach for many of us, and access to healthy foods within cities varies widely. Latino neighborhoods have one-third the supermarkets as other neighborhoods, and studies have shown that Black neighborhoods also have limited access to grocery stores.
Cities hold significant purchasing power that could be better leveraged to support healthy eating. Public facilities (including worksites, parks, and hospitals) often make food available for purchase through cafeterias, concessions, or vending machines. City agencies also purchase and serve food for meetings and events, afterschool programs, senior centers, and correctional facilities.

A Healthy Solution: Healthy Food Purchasing

Leverage Purchasing Power — City procurement policies are an effective tool to make healthy eating easier because local governments are often among the largest employers and food purchasers in a community and can ensure thousands of people have access to healthy choices every day.
Meets Residents Where They Are — Local procurement can provide healthy choices for residents in a variety of locations — at work in government offices, at play in parks and recreational centers, and within local settings, such as schools and daycare facilities.
Provides Residents a Choice — When people have the opportunity to choose what’s best for their bodies, most do. In Chicago, when healthy food options were introduced to vending machines in city parks, the machines’ daily sales increased from $84 to $371.

CityHealth partners with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in support of this policy.

The state of Healthy Food Purchasing policies in big U.S. cities

27 out of 75 cities received a medal for healthy food purchasing policies, including 3 golds, 3 silver, and 21 bronze.

Measuring cities’ Healthy Food Purchasing policies

How will we award healthy food purchasing medals?	Bronze Medal	Silver Medal	Gold Medal
City has a procurement policy mandating nutrition standards.
City procurement policy applies to one or more venues where food is sold or served on city property or by a city agency or city contractor. The policy may apply only to vending machines.
City has a procurement policy that mandates nutrition standards at least as strong as the Foodservice Guidelines for Federal Facilities* or adopts the Good Food Purchasing Program standards.
City procurement policy applies to EITHER: • All venues where food is sold on city property OR • All venues where food is purchased with city funds and/or served by city agencies, contractors, or subcontractors.
City has a procurement policy that mandates nutrition standards at least as strong as the Foodservice Guidelines for Federal Facilities.*
City procurement policy applies to all venues where food is sold or served on city property or by city agencies, contractors, or subcontractors, and purchased with city funds.

*A policy as strong as the Foodservice Guidelines for Federal Facilities is determined by meeting a minimum number of criteria adapted from the CDC food service guidelines policy classification tool.

Permissible Exemptions: