[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: RE: Local Foods and Humane Treatment

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Castillo, Carl


Good Afternoon Council Member Shoemaker,
 
This is a long overdue response to your below email of Oct. 18th. In it you suggest a pilot project to locally source City Council meals. I’ve spoken with Jane and she agrees it is a good idea and in keeping with council’s adopted local food goals. Accordingly, the City Clerk’s office anticipates initiating such a pilot early next year; most likely at the council retreat. In the mean time, we will engage
 local caterers to explore our options. 
 
We will ask for council’s patience as we wrestle with some of the surprising challenges that this pilot could create. By way of example, the following are some questions we will need answered:
 
·       
How do we define local (e.g., from Boulder v. Colorado, grown/raised here v. processed here, etc.)
·       
What percent of meals can realistically be sourced locally, and during which seasons of the year?
·       
If it significantly increases the allotted budget, are additional funds available and appropriate?
·       
Do the options comport with the city’s (potentially competing) goal of encouraging healthy choices (i.e., See “Healthy Food and Beverages for Employee Meetings & Events”)
·       
Will the options and variety accommodate ever changing taste preferences?
 
This still will leave other important questions unanswered, such as the relationship between buying local to environmental stewardship, humane treatment of animals, food sensitivities and allergies. But it explains why we will be taking baby steps and rely on ongoing council feedback throughout the pilot.
 
As you mentioned, a pilot is also in keeping with council’s 2014-2015 workplan to adopt a city organization-wide local foods procurement policy. We hope to
 bring a proposed procurement policy for council’s consideration in the third quarter of 2015. The  lessons learned from the council meals pilot will be important to informing the drafting of such policy. Moreover, lessons subsequently learned from implementation of a citywide procurement policy would be important in building credibility for existing city efforts to encourage our community to turn to local foods.
 
So as you no doubt envisioned, this may be a small step, but one that could takes us down a long, windy, but fruitful road.

Thank you again for making the suggestion!
 
Carl Castillo
Policy Advisor
City of Boulder
www.bouldercolorado.gov/policy-advisor
 
 
From: Shoemaker, Andrew

Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2014 8:41 AM
To: HOTLINE
Subject: Local Foods and Humane Treatment


We are discussing under Matters this week an initiative re local foods.   This is a very important issue, and as I recall it is on the work plan to develop a local foods initiative for City procurement.  One easy first step — call it a “pilot” if you will — is to source City Council meals locally.  I have confirmed with Bridge House Community Table Kitchen that it can prepare foods from local sources.  Something like
 that serves two purposes — (1) further assisting Bridge House by using their services; and (2) using local food.  This would be a small move, but it is a step forward and sends a message.  Right now, we have no idea about the source of our foods, other than what restaurant catered it.   At a minimum, we could (in my view should) ask whoever is supplying Council meals to tell us where our food is coming from.  Using local foods not only supports local farmers, it also allows us to learn more about how our foods are grown or, when dealing with animal products, whether humanely treated when raised.  A relevant opinion on that subject today from the NYT:


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/opinion/free-pigs-from-the-abusive-crates.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0