What is
Good Food Communities?

Building Racial, Environmental, & Worker Justice and Transparency in the Food System

Good Food Communities (GFC) provides a framework for grassroots coalitions to prioritize four equity outcomes in their policy and organizing efforts, and for participating public institutions to give preference to food vendors and suppliers with shared principles. It also provides pathways for institutions participating in the Good Food Purchasing Program to gain extra points and therefore improve their overall score in the Program based on equity goals.

Comprehensive Platform

Building on the successes that many local coalitions and national organizations have had in passing the Good Food Purchasing Program, HEAL Food Alliance (HEAL) and the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) worked with our members and close allies to develop a framework that deepens commitment to racial equity, worker justice, environmental justice, and transparency. We will apply this framework towards our current procurement organizing and building toward HEAL’s Platform for Real Food.

Four Pillars

Workers Equity Climate Transparency

Workers

Secure living wages for frontline food workers.

Frontline food workers make vital contributions to the food value chain. Good Food Communities is driving the transition to a food system that values its frontline workers in ways that reflect their vital contributions

Equity

Climate

Transparency

Public Dollars for Public Good

Food contracts are often awarded to larger food corporations or food service corporations, who perpetuate, and profit from, a model of food production that’s characterized by institutional racism, pollution of our air, water and soil, and exploitation of frontline workers. Leveraging tax dollars that are spent on these contracts, to invest instead in supply chains that provide a living wage to frontline workers, protect communities of color from heavy food polluters, and provide contracts to small producers of color and women is one way to reverse this trend.

How it works

Good Food Communities provides a framework for participating institutions to award points to vendors and suppliers practicing principles of racial and gender equity, giving them preference and increasing their likelihood of winning institutional contracts.

It also provides pathways for institutions participating in the Good Food Purchasing Program to gain extra points and therefore improve their overall score in the Program based on equity goals.

For example, Good Food Communities will support the following kinds of farms and food businesses to win institutional food contracts:

Worker-owned cooperatives that have a stated mission to serve or is majority-owned by people of color

Farms and food businesses where frontline workers are paid a living wage and have a voice in the workplace

Food businesses owned and operated by people of color, entrepreneurs of color, and farmers of color

Environmentally-sustainable businesses located in or within close proximity of a community of color

Food vendors that invest in and hire from communities of color and that prioritize advancement opportunities for people working on the frontlines

It's time to transform
our food supply chain

One community at a time

Food Workers Small-scale Farmers Procurement

Food Workers

A food system that values food workers

The food system is the largest employment sector in the United States, with 1 out of every 7 workers (over 21.5 million) helping to get food to our tables. The bulk of food chain workers are in non-managerial, low-wage positions and are predominantly people of color, immigrants, and women. These workers are at high risk for experiencing food insecurity, wage theft, harassment and intimidation, workplace injury and illness, and lack of access to health care.

Small-scale Farmers

Nurturing small-scale farmers makes our food system more resilient

With supply chains that criss-cross the length of the country, and marketplaces that cater to big corporations, our food system is not built to resist crises. The people of color who do own farms and food businesses and are ready to feed communities often face challenges in finding capital to start up or grow their businesses due to historical inequities, structural racism, and widespread discrimination at financial institutions. By directing institutional contracts to them, we are investing in building resilient regional food systems.

Procurement

The power of procurement

Large public institutions—schools, hospitals,and prisons serve over $120 billion worth of meals each year. That’s a lot of public dollars spent on procuring food. These institutions can wield their purchasing power to set progressive standards for their food procurement—by requiring their suppliers to pay workers fairly, or by increasing sourcing from small-scale farmers of color. In doing so, they can have a significant impact on regional food systems, local economies and public health.

Who we are

We are a broad coalition of national, local, and regional organizations representing millions of people who eat, produce, process, deliver, and serve the food in our country.

We are led by grassroots leadership from Buffalo, Cincinnati, Chicago, Gainesville, NYC, and Oakland, as well as national partners from the HEAL Food Alliance and the Food Chain Workers Alliance.