Community Meeting Notes: Sustainable Food

The following are notes taken at a meeting held on October 13, 2011 to discuss WPF's future grantmaking related to sustainable food networks.

Individuals participated with the understanding that they were speaking without attribution, so their names are intentionally omitted from these notes.

Meeting Purpose and Questions

The Foundation's Environment & Communities program has invested in places:  in targeted areas and catalytic projects where there is strong leadership and market potential for high-leverage, high-impact opportunities.  We have initiated and sought out efforts to reanimate and revitalize places and communities, with “food” as the lead driver.  Examples of past Foundation-funded projects include:  the Headhouse Farmer’s Market in Center City, Night Market in Mt. Airy, and GreensGrow’s Farm Project in New Kensington.

The Greater Philadelphia region has a rich array of players working within the “food system,” many of whom are pioneers and stars in their respective fields:  from agencies tackling obesity and hunger to the entrepreneurs and private investors.  It is work that has thrived and benefited from collaborations across sectors, and with stakeholders who have brought specialized expertise, including The Reinvestment Fund and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism & Marketing Corporation.

The Foundation has been focusing on those intersection points and sweet spots where different missions and agendas converge to spark breakthrough changes.  Toward that end, we invited a group of key grantees, business leaders, and government partners, and posed the following questions:

Philadelphia has been on the forefront of the food movement.  Where do we go from here?  What would be the best use of philanthropic dollars? What are the challenges and opportunities? What are the potential breakthrough research and development ideas and promising projects? Where are the project opportunities where the scale of activity or innovation could tip markets and places to create destinations of choice? Who are the other players who should be in this discussion and on our team?

Who are the set of players best positioned to explore or lead an effort to address systems-level policy barriers to developing a more robust regional food system that serves all communities?

Major Points from the Discussion

How the Philadelphia region became a national leader: proliferation of excellent restaurants in city and countryside with close affiliation to local farms. Political champions – without local and state leadership would not have been as successful in Philadelphia. Entry point to advancing other priority strategies and broader cultural changes.  Food access is viewed as an avenue to address health disparity and quality of life issues. Collaborations, political championship, and strong vision and leadership within the NGO community have been critical components of success.  PA is ahead, in part, because of its rich agricultural lands, history and tradition, and recent efforts to advance sustainable practices.  In Philadelphia, urban farming has enjoyed a renewed renaissance as more young farmers have sought to put to productive use the city’s thousands of vacant and underutilized properties. Partnerships/collaborations and the availability and affordability of property are regional advantages.

Suggestions on what should be done next in Phila: research and development that drives public policy.  Get entrepreneurs and public policy people on the same page (for example, need zoning to establish a health clinic in a supermarket and insurance may not reimburse care at such a clinic). Define outcome goals and how to measure success.  Increase demand for fresh food through education and marketing. Improve local supply system and strengthen markets to bring down cost.  Help farmers make a living wage, possibly through co-operatives or other business models.  Consider building on the corner store initiative pilot program to diversify types of stores and choices, based on markets, particularly small format store. Find institutional purchasers of food (universities, hospitals) who can achieve scale and drive market change.

Guidance to WPF

Smart subsidy.  Look to support, in the short term, where enterprises in the food system need seed capital or are unlikely to be profitable.  Help plug the gap between profitable and unprofitable until the public sector or market can support.  Help demonstrate good ideas that may be sustainable once underway, such as banking and health clinics in supermarkets in low-income areas.

Research and field building.  Use mapping to identify gaps in food access, to develop constituencies and markets, and drive policy. Create a regional network of players within the food system pipeline, from farmers to value-add food producers, restaurants, and food hubs like GreensGrow and Reading Terminal Market. Build organizational capacity so that they can do what they do best, identify income-producing activities, and reduce dependence on subsidies.

Supply/demand – aggregation.  Institutional practices provide great opportunity—support research to demonstrate the impact of institutional buying on local markets and champions who promote change.  Provide marketing assistance to those institutions that do use best practices for healthy, local food, i.e., premium marketing or certification.

New business models.  Help local farmers organize in order to be able to sell to large purchasers—identify appropriate business models, such as co-operatives.  Enable buyers to have “one-stop” shopping  from local farmers.

Leverage public and private resources.  Strengthen anti-obesity and healthy food strategies by public sector—city and school district procurement. Convene others to the issue, such as other industry players and business schools.

Entrepreneurship.  Leverage local relationships and work with new breed of entrepreneurs and restaurateurs to support healthy food access, work with others to utilize local markets, and create an atmosphere of innovation and progress. Convene and show best practices, invest in innovations.  Other cities have used food for “re-birth”, such as New Orleans and San Francisco.