Who We Are
We use the power of procurement to create a transparent and equitable food system that prioritizes the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment. We do this through the nationally networked adoption and implementation of our Good Food Purchasing Policy by major institutions.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing coordinates the collaborative Good Food Purchasing initiative, working closely with national partners and local food policy councils and grassroots coalitions in cities across the US to build a cohesive movement in support of Good Food purchasing.
We also manage the Good Food Purchasing Program, working with participating institutions to verify compliance with the Good Food Purchasing Policy, assist them in fulfilling their commitments, and celebrate their successes over time.
What We Do
The Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) brings stakeholders from across the food chain to the same table to:
- ACTIVATE the policy process to institutionalize buyers’ commitments to Good Food and supply chain transparency.
- ENHANCE the capacity of local grassroots coalitions and support for local procurement policy efforts to ensure that public food contracts reflect community values.
- INCREASE alignment and coordination in the food movement through comprehensive, metric-driven standards that reflect our collective values.
- SUPPORT administrators by giving them tools to make informed procurement decisions, set procurement targets, and measure impact.
- LEVERAGE increased supply chain knowledge and large-scale buying power of institutions to drive change in the food industry towards suppliers that support local economies and communities, protect the environment and natural resources, treat workers with dignity and fairness, raise animals humanely, and ensure the highest quality, most nutritious food is available to all communities.
History
The Good Food Purchasing Policy was developed by a multi-stakeholder working group of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC). Individuals had expertise in labor, nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, agriculture, processing, distribution and institutional food procurement.
The Working Group solicited input on the policy from nearly 100 local, state and national food system experts.
The Policy was adopted by the City of LA and LA Unified School District in 2012, impacting approximately 750,000 meals a day.
The LAFPC developed the Good Food Purchasing Program to support institutions in implementing the Policy and verify compliance.
GFPP is a model that can be adapted around the country. In 2015, the LAFPC spun off the Good Food Purchasing Program, encouraging nationwide adoption to increase alignment and coordination around Good Food procurement.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing was created to guide the national expansion of GFPP. The Center for Good Food Purchasing is working with national partners, local food policy councils and grassroots coalitions, administrators, and elected officials in cities across the country to transfer and scale the GFPP model.
The Center for Good Food Purchasing is a project of Community Partners
.
Meet Our Team
Staff
ALEXA DELWICHE is the Executive Director of the Center for Good Food Purchasing. She previously served as Managing Director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, overseeing overall operations of the organization from 2011 – 2015. At the LA Food Policy Council, she spearheaded the development, launch and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Policy. From 2009 – 2010, Alexa was the food policy coordinator for the Los Angeles Food Policy Task Force, working with the Task Force to produce and present to the Mayor of Los Angeles the Good Food for All Agenda. Prior to her food policy council work, Alexa was a strategic researcher for the United Farm Workers where she developed a deep understanding of California agricultural industry trends and structures. Alexa has a Master’s of Public Policy from UCLA.
COLLEEN MCKINNEY is the Associate Director for the Center for Good Food Purchasing, where her focus is on the successful expansion and implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program. Previously, she contributed to the Good Food Purchasing Program as a Policy & Program Associate at the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. She was previously a Student Affairs program advisor at Whitman College. She has a bachelor’s degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA, and a master’s in public policy from the University of Southern California.
Governance Board
Paula Daniels,
PAULA DANIELS is co- founder and Chair of the Center for Good Food Purchasing, a social enterprise non-profit founded in July of 2015 as a national spin off from the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, which Paula founded in 2011. Paula was also Executive Director of California Central, a USC Villaraigosa Initiative, from April of 2015 to June 2016. She is a public policy leader in environmental food and water policy, with recognition through academic appointments and other awards, including the 2012-2013 Stanton Fellowship (awarded by the Durfee Foundation); the 2015 Pritzker Environment and Sustainability Education Fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; the 2013 Lee Chair in Real Estate Law and Urban Planning. She has also taught at USC, and Vermont Law School.
After a long career as an attorney in civil litigation, she served as a Los Angeles Public Works Commissioner (a full-time position overseeing the Department of Public Works) and then Senior Advisor to Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles. She has also been a commissioner with the California Coastal Commission, and a gubernatorial appointee on the governing board of the California Bay-Delta Authority. She is an appointee of Governor Brown to the California Water Commission, and served in his Office of Planning and Research as Senior Fellow for Food Systems, Water and Climate.
ALLISON HAGEY is Associate Director at PolicyLink. At PolicyLink, she is a member of the PolicyLink Center for Health Equity and Place and the Food Access team, where she works to advance policy promoting health, social, and economic equity. She focuses on promoting strategies to improve health and counteract obesity, including improving access to healthy food and advancing policies promoting healthy neighborhood environments. Allison has been a key team member advocating for and advancing the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a national effort to improve access to healthy food. She is leading the effort to create and maintain the nation’s first online Healthy Food Access Portal to promote healthy food retail efforts. Allison holds an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley, and a JD from the University of Texas at Austin. In her free time, she enjoys running, biking, and spending time reading and playing sports with her kids.
Kim Kessler,
Vice Chair
Policy and Special Programs Director, Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, UCLA
KIM KESSLER is the Policy and Special Programs Director of the Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, a newly created program dedicated to studying and advancing law and policy solutions to improve the modern food system. Previously, Kessler served as the Food Policy Coordinator for the City of New York, an appointed position in the Mayor’s Office. In this role, she coordinated and oversaw municipal food policies and initiatives, including initiatives related to improved retail access to nutritious foods, urban agriculture, healthy food procurement, and combating obesity. She also helped to formulate, and advocate on behalf of, New York City’s food policy priorities with Congress and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Prior to working for the Bloomberg Administration, Kim was an attorney at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Kessler received her J.D. magna cum laude from New York University School of Law. During her law school career, she was elected to the Order of the Coif, and was awarded the Anne Petluck Poses Memorial Prize in recognition of outstanding work in a legal clinic. Kessler received her A.B. in Political Science from Brown University. From 2005 to 2006, Kessler clerked for the Honorable Victor Marrero of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Joann Lo
Co-Director, Food Chain Workers Alliance
JOANN LO is the Co-Director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance and was the first staff member of the Alliance when she began in November 2009. The daughter of immigrants from Taiwan, she graduated from Yale University with a degree in Environmental Biology and has organized with both unions and a worker center. In 2000 Joann was one of two staff who started the Garment Worker Center, and she organized with garment workers in Los Angeles who led a successful campaign against retailer Forever 21, memorialized in the Emmy-winning documentary “Made in L.A.” In 2005 Joann joined Enlace, an alliance of worker centers and unions and a year later became Co-Director. Joann is the Chair of the Leadership Board of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Domestic Fair Trade Association, the City of Los Angeles’ Sweatfree Advisory Committee and the Enlace Institute Advisory Board.
Ricardo Salvador
Senior Scientist & Director, Food & Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
RICARDO SALVADOR works with citizens, scientists, economists, and politicians to transition our current food system into one that grows healthy foods while employing sustainable and socially equitable practices.
Before coming to UCS, Dr. Salvador served as a program officer for food, health, and well-being with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In this capacity, he was responsible for conceptualizing and managing the Foundation’s food systems programming. He partnered with colleagues to create programs that addressed the connections between food and health, environment, economic development, sovereignty, and social justice.
Prior to that, he was an associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University. While at ISU, Dr. Salvador taught the first course in sustainable agriculture at a land-grant university, and his graduate students conducted some of the original academic research on community-supported agriculture. He also worked with students to establish ISU’s student-operated organic farm, and with other faculty to develop the nation’s first sustainable agriculture graduate program in 2000; Dr. Salvador served as the program’s first chair. Dr. Salvador also worked as an extension agent with Texas A&M University.
Dr. Salvador has appeared on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show and has been quoted in The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Politico and many other outlets. Dr. Salvador was named a 2013 NBC Latino Innovator and received the James Beard Foundation Leadership Award in 2014. He was also an author of a 2014 op-ed in The Washington Post calling for a national food policy, which is changing how many think about food and farm policy.
Dr. Salvador earned a B.S. in agricultural science from New Mexico State University. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in crop production and physiology from Iowa State University.
Douglass Sims
Director of Strategy and Finance, Center for Market Innovation, Natural Resources Defense Council
DOUGLASS SIMS is Director of Strategy and Finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Center for Market Innovation (CMI). In 2012 and 2013, he was instrumental in the launch of the New York Green Bank and currently is working green banks in California and other states. Douglass also sits on the standards committee of the Climate Bonds Initiative, is a leader of the Green City Bonds coalition and is advisor on energy poverty to the Clinton Global Initiative. Over the past 15 years, Douglass has worked in international and national emerging markets first as a senior project finance attorney at a leading international law firm and, since 2010, at the Center for Market Innovation where he co-leads CMI and focuses on next generation energy, food, water, shelter and infrastructure investments. Douglass holds a JD from Harvard Law School and BA from Stanford University.
Meet Our Partners
National Partners
Local Lead Partners
In cities and regions across the U.S., local food policy councils and grassroots coalitions are campaigning for their local public institutions to adopt the Good Food Purchasing Policy. The cities below are the trailblazers in this networked Good Food Purchasing movement. There are a number of coalitions in other cities in earlier stages of GFPP campaigns. Check back soon and watch the movement grow.
Chicago
Cincinnati
Long Beach
Los Angeles
(adopted GFPP in 2012)
(adopted GFPP in 2012)
Oakland
