Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre - Nourish Initiative

Traditional food programs in northern Ontario and how traditional food can be a pathway to reconciliation. Kathy Loon, Program Manager of Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre and lead of traditional food programs in northern, Ontario was interviewed and shared the importance of local and traditional food on patient health, and the benefits of sourcing local food in health centres in the north.

Meno Ya Win Health Centre is the only hospital in Canada to have special legislation that allows them serve traditional and local uninspected food, like wild meat and game.

Mohawk College has developed an online course in Local Food Procurement designed for professionals working in a foodservice setting at public institutions to grow their local food and sustainable procurement knowledge, and learn strategies for identifying, procuring and promoting local foods. Learn more about the course and register online at: mohawkcollege.ca/local-food-procurement

As far back as 2008, the City of Thunder Bay has been working to strengthen and connect their local food system to their municipally-run facilities. The City has emerged as a leader in food systems planning in the province, having adopted the Thunder Bay Food Charter, the Community Environmental Action Plan, a Community Garden Policy and supported the Thunder Bay and Area Food Strategy.

Read Breaking Down Local Food Barriers: Food Forwards Contracts in Thunder Bay

The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance (GHFFA) project, Serving Up Local, is a partnership with Durham and Halton regions, and the City of Hamilton, to increase the amount of local foods offered in their facilities with a special focus on long-term care homes. To help build the capacity of other regions wanting to take on a similar initiative they have generated case studies, a project manual, and communications pieces which are available on their website.

Informed by industry research conducted through a targeted literature review, in-depth interviews with stakeholders from across the college foodservices supply chain, and a province-wide student survey, this report identifies a set of common challenges to local food procurement in the Ontario college system, and lays out a series of opportunities with recommended actions that will support increased local food procurement at Ontario’s 24 colleges.

Read the Research Report: Increasing Local Food Procurement at Ontario's 24 Colleges

Mohawk College has created a scalable, transferable toolkit that includes a step-by-step guide, resources, along with tools to increase local food procurement at Ontario’s 24 colleges. While it's focus is on colleges that use third-party foodservices operators the ideas and initiatives described may be applicable to self-operated foodservices and other institutions throughout the public sector.

Read The Local Food Framework for Ontario Colleges: A step-by-step guide to bringing more local food to Ontario colleges

You can also review the guide and download the related tools and templates here: oncollegefood.com

On Jan 10, we hosted a workshop that connected buyers and sellers through the local food value chain. Furthermore, presentations were given in a number of areas to educate buyers and sellers on the purchasing and selling of local food. Here are the slides of all the presentations given.

This report by My Sustainable Canada documents the current state of local food usage in Ontario’s long-term care sector.

Most of the 600+ homes in Ontario do not track local food usage and many report barriers to adding these items to their menus. With an estimated annual raw food spend in excess of $210 million, Ontario’s long-term care sector represents a significant opportunity for local producers.

Read Local Food and Ontario's Long-Term Care Sector.

In 2015, Halton Healthcare hopped aboard Ontario's Local Food Act and put into writing a Local Food Procurement Statement to promote the use of local food in their hospitals. The statement outlines the steps and criteria in which Halton Healthcare will formulate a Local Food Procurement Strategy, and create a shareable plan and process between the hospitals and local producers to integrate suppliers into the purchasing structure of the hospitals.

Read Halton Healthcare's Local Food Procurement Statement

Additionally, Halton Healthcare had developed six nutritious recipes whose ingredients can be sourced locally.

View The Recipes.

George Brown College's Hospitality and Culinary Arts program partnered with St. Michael's Hospital to create an easy-to-use guide for kitchen staff at St. Michael's to learn how, where and when of local food purchasing and preparation. They have also included a suite of locally-sourced and nutritious recipes with a nutritional label for each to simplify a hospital dietitian's work.

Read St. Michael’s Hospital Training Manual, Recipe Book And Procurement Guide

Replicating the success with St. Michael's, George Brown then partnered with the Toronto District Schoolboard, and created a procurement guide.

Read Procurement Guide: The My Food My Way Project