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Opportunities and challenges Local hospital suppliers need to compete on volume and price


by TOM WALKER PENTICTON – BC Minister of


Agriculture Lana Popham announced a Feed BC initiative in March 2019 to help health authorities buy more local food.


During a follow-up tour at the


Penticton Regional Hospital, Country Life in BC noticed a very large sign advertising Marley Coffee in the canteen. Given the number of coffee roasters across the Okanagan and indeed all of BC, why wasn’t the hospital buying local coffee? “Oh, that frustrates the heck out of


me,” says Donna Koenig, who manages support services for Interior Health in Oliver and Osoyoos. “We should be serving Okanagan or Kootenay coffee, but we can’t. … We are locked into a long-term nation-wide contract that supplies Marley coffee to hospitals all across Canada and we can’t break it.” Koenig explains that long-term


contracts are one of the barriers BC public institutions face when trying to buy local. The contracts help keep operating costs low. Nevertheless, public institutions


represent a huge opportunity for BC farmers and food processors. Interior Health, one of BC’s five


regional health authorities, buys about $13 million worth of food each year. That translates to approximately five million meals served in hospitals as well as at residential care facilities and via the Dinners at Home program and Meals on Wheels.


Koenig has had a lot of experience


in food during her 40 years with Interior Health. Three years ago, she


was invited to be a member of Nourish, a Canada-wide organization that investigates the future of food in Canadian health care. “Nourish speaks to my two passions of local and sustainable food,” says Koenig.


Local food purchasing grows Interior Health says 30% of its food


purchases are local, and growing. However, Koenig faces several considerations when she chooses items. Sysco Canada Kelowna is the sole supplier for Interior Health, for example, an arrangement that makes purchasing simpler. “It is such a value-added for us,” says


Koenig. “I remember when we used to buy chicken from one supplier and beef from someone else and all the paperwork involved.” Sysco also provides an in-house traceability system. “That traceability is so important in health care,” says Koenig. “We have to protect the vulnerable and immune- compromised.” Public institutions have neither the labour nor the machinery to work with the large amount of fresh, whole foods they require so they are looking for further-processed items. “We need our carrots to be peeled and chopped and our potatoes mashed,” says Koenig. “We might be able to offer fresh BC strawberries a couple of weeks a year, but the rest of the year they will have been frozen.” Eggs come already shelled and cheese is in individual portions. A lot of institutional clients have eating


challenges, so yogurt must be pre- blended and much of the fruit served is pureed. There’s also increasing attention


given to making sure food is culturally appropriate for patients, whether Caucasian, Asian or Indigenous. Year-round availability is also


important to reduce menu changes. BC Tree Fruits Cooperative has plenty of apples, but the crop is usually sold out by late spring and then apples need to be imported. BC growers and producers face challenges meeting the institutions’ specifications and at the price required. “Can they supply us with the same


product at a price that the public can afford to buy?” asks Koenig. Interior Health’s food budget is about $9.42 per person a day. This is within the $8 to $12 Nourish says is spent across Canada. “Everybody says local costs more


and yes, it can initially cost more in the beginning,” says Koenig. “But we have learned through Nourish that buying local puts anywhere from $5 to $10 back into the community.” Is there an appetite to spend more money to buy local?


“I think it is going to happen,” says


Koenig. “My grandchildren are being taught how to read labels. The youth of today are more about local than we have been in the last 50 years.” With the idea of food as medicine coming into vogue, Koenig sees a major shift in attitudes ahead. “It’s not just food,” she says. “It’s part


of the treatment and the health and wellness of the person ... but also the whole community around us.”


COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • FEBRUARY 2020 FEED nfrom pg 15


says. “And we hope it can be done on a regional level. Can we develop value-added opportunities for the grain growers in the Peace, for example?” Feed BC shouldn’t mean


growers have to abandon export markets. “Export markets are very


important,” says Popham. “But I think if we make it easy and we make it financially viable for farmers and processors to supply into BC as part of their business plan, it is going to work and going to allow them some stability.” Will it cost more? “Some of the information


we are getting back is showing that it isn’t actually costing more, though it is always top-of-mind with institutional budgets,” says Popham. “But we are finding that it is not as much of a barrier as we thought.” Can BC grow enough? “I don’t know if we can supply our whole system, but we are not even coming close to supplying half of it. We can do better,” Popham says. “Farmers are always saying they need more programs to support what they are doing, so I think this touches everything.” The initial focus has been health care, but the program will eventually roll out to post-secondary institutions. “I like to say we are


changing things in the hospital system, but we are really trying to change the whole food system in the province,” says Popham.


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