Creating Local Food Entrée Options for Healthcare, Brantford $65,000

St. Joseph’s Health System, Group Purchasing Organization (SJHS-GPO) conducted a project that helped hospitals increase their local food purchasing in three new ways: (i) demonstrating that menu items made from scratch using local ingredients can work with reheating food ovens (re-therm); (ii) working with the local food value chain to create new ready-made local food entrées for re-therm; and, (iii) creating a new product category for fresh, minimally processed products in their contracting process. St. Joseph’s has been successful in creating and testing 50 new local food entrée options, including the nutritional information with their new recipes. To promote local food, the GPO developed outreach materials and a coaching program to support re-therm clients in using the new local food options.