Local Food and Sustainable
City-Regions: The Potential
of Public Procurement
Dr. Roberta Sonnino
School of City and Regional Planning
Cardiff University
Searching for Sustainable
Development: The Power of the
Public Sector

Public procurement as the sleeping giant of
economic development policy
– in the EU, the public procurement spend amounts
to ca. 16% of the gross domestic product
– In the UK, the public sector spends some £ 150
billion/year, or around 13% of its GDP

Significant opportunity to promote socially
and environmentally friendly products and
services – concept of sustainable
procurement
Sustainable public procurement
Bringing together the business and the policy arms of
government is what sustainable procurement is about. It
is about how the government’ s immense buying power
can be used to make rapid progress towards its own
goals on sustainable development. […] Sustainable
procurement – in short using procurement to support
wider social, economic and environmental objectives in
ways that offer real long-term benefits, is how the public
sector should be spending taxpayers money (Neville
Simms, UK Sustainable Procurement Task Force, 2006)
Sustainable Public Procurement:
The Potential of Local Food

Food re-localization as a necessary (but
not per se sufficient) aspect of sustainable
public procurement systems
– Environmental benefits
– Multiplier effect on the local economy
– Shared commitment to the objectives of
sustainability
Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: The Barriers
Cost-cutting culture – “best value” wrongly
interpreted as “low cost”
 Wrong perception that food re-localization
is not allowed by the EU legislation. In
fact:

– Article 6 of the Treaty of the European Union
(1997) requires the integration of
environmental and social objectives into all
EU’s policies
– Article 26 of the 2004 Public Sector Directive
Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: The Opportunities
If it is set out in a non-discriminatory way, there’s
no doubt whatsoever that you can use as your
technical specification that all foodstuff must be
organic, full stop. […] It is legitimate to say “we
want foodstuff that is not older than”, it’s a
legitimate idea…If that means in practice that it
will have to be locally-grown, so be it! It remains
a legitimate criterion, but it is not a legitimate
criterion if you say that it has to be produced
within 10 kilometres from the school. Interview at
DG INTERNAL MARKET, 2006
Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: The Benefits

The County of East
Ayrshire (Scotland)
has re-localized its
school food chain
– Products broken into 9
lots to attract local
producers
– Innovative award criteria
based on quality, rather
than price
Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: The Benefits
Multiplier effect of £ 160,000/12 schools
on local economy
 Local sourcing has helped the Council to
save almost £ 100,000 in environmental
costs -- food miles, packaging waste
 Increased citizens’ satisfaction with the
service
 Social Return on Investment Index of 6.19

Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: The Benefits

The City of Rome (Italy)
has also partly relocalized its enormous
school food system
through creative
procurement:
– Emphasis on PDO/PGI
products
– Products from “biodedicated” food chains
– “Guaranteed freshness”
Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: The Benefits

In 2009:
–
–
–
–
–
67.5% of the food
was organic
44% of the food
came from ‘biodedicated’ food
chains
26% of the food was
local
14% of the food was
Fair Trade
2% of the food came
from social
cooperatives
Re-localizing the Public Food
Systems: Some Conclusions

Municipal governments as food chain innovators
– food security as a matter of production and access

Need to establish mechanisms that:
– facilitate the diffusion of knowledge (good practice is
a bad traveller)
– scale up and protect urban food strategies to create
sustainable city-regions - regions that are
characterised by reciprocal and synergistic relations
between urban, peri-urban and rural areas