Organic and conventional public food procurement for youth in Denmark – a national overview

Abstract

This report is a mapping of the activities within public procurement of organic food for youth in Denmark, with a special focus on school meals. In Denmark, it is voluntary whether local municipalities or schools arrange school meals or not. Over time, more and more schools or municipalities choose to establish school meal systems, but these vary extensively in the way they are organized, what kind of food is served, and how they are financed. This report includes an overall mapping of the different ways of organizing school meals and their dissemination. Organic food has also been increasingly debated in relation to public procurement for children and youth. Whether the subject of organic food is discussed and implemented depends on the local values, goals, resources and politics. Hence there are municipalities and institutions with no organic food at all, while others have an organic share of more than 90 %. This is particularly in the municipalities situated in the Greater Copenhagen area, and the Green cities cooperation. These cases are briefly described in the report, along with a short mapping of other municipalities using organic food in meals for daycare institutions or schools. The report was produced in the iPOPY project, “innovative Public Organic food Procurement for Youth”. Similar reports have been produced for the other iPOPY countries; Norway, Finland and Italy