Procurement from local producers for food service in primary and secondary school settings: A scoping review

Galloway, Claire, Devine, Sue, Parison, Julie, and Jones, Holley-Anne (2023) Procurement from local producers for food service in primary and secondary school settings: A scoping review. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 34 (2). pp. 316-327.

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Abstract

Issue addressed: Australian school canteen guidelines do not broadly incentivise procuring food from local producers, despite evidence of this occurring abroad. This scoping review aims to investigate what is known about local food procurement for school foodservice.

Methods: A scoping review of peer-reviewed articles published since 2000 was undertaken using MEDLINE, CINAHL and Scopus.

Results: Twenty-one studies met the inclusion criteria. Local food was generally perceived as fresher and more nutritious. Small, positive impacts on fruit and vegetable intake have been demonstrated when food is procured locally. Challenges identified included concerns around food safety, varied availability, time spent coordinating food supply, lack of incentive from regional or national guidelines, inadequate kitchen facilities and budget constraints.

Conclusions: There is no universal definition or standard for procuring ‘local food’. The main motivation for local food procurement was a sense of social responsibility, however there are barriers, including cost, facilities and food safety. Purchasing food locally holds potential to benefit the local economy but government funding and policy supporting local and small-scale producers is an important enabler.

So what?: Government support to build stakeholder capacity is important in establishing and maintaining these programmes and would be crucial in achieving change in Australian schools. Investigating feasibility of a national school lunch service would be beneficial, as these programmes may have merit not just in feeding children but also in supporting the local economy. Further research is warranted in this area.

Item ID: 75140
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2201-1617
Keywords: food procurement, food service, local food, local procurement, meal service, school, school canteen
Copyright Information: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2022 The Authors. Health Promotion Journal of Australia published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australian Health Promotion Association.
Date Deposited: 30 Aug 2022 02:00
FoR Codes: 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420603 Health promotion @ 100%
SEO Codes: 20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200410 Nutrition @ 100%
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