ITS 2019-123: Promoting social and sustainable public procurement in collective catering. Phase 1

The project

Maintaining agricultural systems on the Balearic Islands is essential for the resident population’s food security and to help conserve the area, landscape, biodiversity and prevent risks (fires, floods, etc.).  That is why the project promotes the protection of the agricultural environment alongside educational activities concerning agriculture and the environment.

Building sustainable agri-food chains, from social (production and working conditions), environmental (minimisation of environmental impacts and resource use, promotion of the circular economy) and health (food safety, promotion of healthy food, etc.) perspectives, requires holistic actions that involve the consumer sector and the organised civil society, agri-industrial stakeholders, the primary production sector and central and regional governments and local authorities.

Consequently, the project has the following specific objectives:

Specific objective 1. As a result of research actions, studies and assessments, having tools to establish basic lines of action for developing social and sustainable public procurement policies.

The actions planned to achieve this objective are: analysing food chains linked to food services offered by the Balearic public sector and assessing requirements and capacity for improvement in the local, organic, agri-industrial and artisanal production sector in the Balearic Islands for self-sufficiency for the public food market.

Specific objective 2. Developing the public and private interinstitutional structure (ministries of health, education and the environment, island councils, town councils, civil society and food chain sector) to implement public procurement policies linked to the collective catering sector by making decision-makers aware of the development of autonomous community legal and regulatory frameworks and of pilot programmes for public canteens (primarily in the state education sector) that use local and organic produce.

The following are planned to achieve this:

- Actions concerning the interinstitutional structure of the public sector, civil society and companies in the food chain to develop fair and sustainable supply chains linked to public food procurement.

- Proposals to develop the autonomous community legal and regulatory frameworks linked to the implementation of public food procurement.

- Spreading awareness among and training public decision-makers of public food procurement policies and food services linked to the public sector.

- Pilot programme of canteens in state schools using local organic produce.

Specific objective 3. Spreading awareness among the Balearic population, with a special emphasis in the educational sector on the link between health, food and local healthy food production by promoting coordination with related public institutions and disseminating knowledge of the potential of social and sustainable public procurements to preserve the agricultural world, the countryside and the environment.

The following actions will be implemented to achieve this objective:

- Awareness and dissemination campaigns of the link between health and food and local production of healthy food.

- Expanding and improving the ministry’s programmes to promote knowledge of agriculture and fishing (local varieties; from the sea to your table; meeting producers; the taste of Balearic Island food) in the educational sector and to promote quality Balearic produce.

- Training of farm labourers in complementary agri-environmental education activities to implement project dissemination programmes.