In September, New York City’s Mayor’s Office of Food Policy released a report titled, “Citywide Goals & Strategy for the Implementation of Good Food Purchasing.” That it wasn’t loudly, roundly celebrated by New Yorkers (assuming they’d heard of it at all) likely had much to do with the dryness of the title and the intricacy of its mission. But within its pages was a lot of good news for the city’s nearly 9 million residents, many of whom were precipitously vulnerable to healthy food shortages during the pandemic, thanks in part to supply chains that originate far beyond the borders of the five boroughs.

The report was billed as a “first step” in figuring out where and how city departments like Education and Health and Human Services procure their food and from whom—all with an eye to shifting to a more regional supply chain that’s also more resilient, sustainable, and equitable by 2031. Though the report is timely, it actually marks years’ worth of effort on the part of city staffers and elected officials, policy wonks, and advocates at numerous universities and nonprofits working towards an overall healthier food system.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization, “incorporating ‘good food’ standards into traditional [institutional] food purchasing contracts results in increased transparency and accountability across the supply chain, as it requires food distributors and food service management companies to report more information from production to purchase, and gives buyers more control over the foods they serve and the systems they support.”

Read the full article about good food by Lela Nargi at The Counter.