Bringing the Good Food Purchasing Program to Buffalo, Challenges and Lessons Learned

The Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) builds on locally established community initiatives and goals to leverage institutional purchasing with the hope of transforming the food system. The program focuses on five core values: local economies, nutrition, a valued workforce, environmental sustainability, and animal welfare. The City of Buffalo shows tremendous potential to benefit from the GFPP. In the Buffalo Niagara region alone, “public institutions feed 163,000 public school students, 89,000 college students, and 6,000 correctional facility inmates each year—a total of 258,000 people.” Los Angeles, California has demonstrated the positive effects that the GFPP has had on the local food system. In order to bring the program to the City of Buffalo a better understanding of the program is necessary. The goal of this report is to aid the organizations in Buffalo who are working to bring the GFPP to the city. The report does this by outlining the time and steps involved in the program, identifying opportunities and challenges, identifying lessons learned, and providing recommendations