Balancing Budgets and Leveraging Your Local Food System (PDF)

A tool for maximizing local sourcing and USDA Foods Purchases for impact. 

How to use this Tool

This tool was created to help your SFA get the most out of your procurement funds and help you reach your goals of procuring locally-grown, fresh, delicious food for your community. Reference the table below for strategies to use different budget categories to maximize your local purchasing power. 

Key points to remember

1) TIMING IS KEY
We recommend you use this tool before you make your entitlement budget allocations in March 2024.

2) UNDERSTAND THE  DEFINITION OF “LOCAL”
To know where products are grown, ask your food vendors about the source origins of what you are already ordering. Check out this seasonality chart to see what’s grown in Mass. Ask your current food vendors: “Please provide me with a velocity report that shows the City and State in which each of our purchased items was grown/raised and the corresponding invoice #.”

3) USE PRE-VETTED VENDORS WHO PROVIDE LOCAL TRACKING
To see availability of regional vendors, produce items, and estimated prices, visit the list of MAPC Northeast Produce RFP awarded vendors and explore which items might fit your menus.

4) MENUING IS KEY FOR SUCCESSFUL LOCAL SOURCING
Consider how your SFA can increase use of whole foods (fresh or frozen)- this will give you more options from local vendors. Try these recipes! Local Items Often Need Preparation: To maximize your success, try menuing recipes that use local items and work with the equipment, training, and capacity of your SFA’s foodservice team.

5) ASK FOR HELP, WE’RE HERE FOR YOU!
Reach out to the Mass. Farm to School team for support navigating procurement and conversations with local suppliers- we want this to be a seamless process. 

Download a PDF version.