Hamilton,
11
July
2017
|
11:57 AM
America/New_York

Local Food Champion

Summary

Ontario's Local Food Report highlights Mohawk's project

Mohawk College New College Procurement Model Emerging

Food services at Ontario’s 24 colleges of applied arts and technology serve roughly 237,000 students each day and record $65 million in annual sales. With a $100,000 Local Food Investment Fund grant, Mohawk College is leading a two-year effort to develop the first-ever local food procurement model for Ontario colleges.

The research phase has been completed and a report released in March 2017 highlighted barriers to and opportunities for local food procurement. For example, lack of local food literacy among college food service and other staff was found to be a key area to strengthen. Soon pilot projects will be launched to test evidence-based solutions emerging from the findings. The research and pilot projects will guide the development of a local food procurement framework that will provide a set of tools that can be adopted by all 24 Ontario colleges.

The final framework is to be released in early 2018. Mohawk also conducted a province-wide survey of Ontario college students to gauge their demand for local food. Of those surveyed, 84 per cent felt that it was important for their college to support sustainability by purchasing and serving local food on campus.

Read full report at http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/about/local_food_rpt17.pdf