Farm to Hospital or other institutional initiatives advance hospitals’ mission to promote and protect health, especially in light of widespread nutrition-related illnesses such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The success of these programs requires successful collaborations and sometimes restructuring of existing contracts. Local food purchasing at hospitals can be difficult to incorporate into hospital food supply chains, which are ties to many other food processing, distribution, and procurement systems.
UC SAREP is committed to the success and continued growth of farm to hospital programs. UC SAREP has evaluated existing farm to hospital programs in California to provide insight to start-up programs to help navigate the farm to hospital landscape.
Publications:
- Institutional Procurement of Regionally-Grown Crops: Learning Lessons (2023)
- Distance, Scale and Ownership in Values-Based Purchasing: A Review of the Literature (2023)
- Lessons from Farm to Hospital programs in California (2007)
- Lessons from Farm to Hospital programs in California: Executive Summary (2007)