GHFFA increases local food procurement in long-term care and releases mealtime engagement toolkit

Things looking a bit different?
Nope, you're not on the wrong site – we're updating our look and content! Keep your eyes peeled for more changes!

Author: Josie Di Felice

Posted: July 10, 2018

Categories: Food in the News / GoodFoodBites / Local Procurement

The Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance (GHFFA) has recently released a toolkit of local food mealtime engagement activities for long-term care as part of their Serving Up Local Training project.

Read the full press release here, which also announces the release of an animated video on the project.

“The Serving Up Local Training project drills down to the heart of local food purchasing in long-term care – the residents and their lived experiences,” says Stephanie Crocker, GHFFA Stakeholder Engagement Strategist. “The project provides learning opportunities for staff that work directly with residents at meal time about new local food options in the homes and ways to communicate these options to residents. Residents can be empowered with the knowledge to be able to choose local foods when available on the menu contribute to a positive mealtime experience.”

The training project builds on their Serving Up Local initiative that increased local food procurement in municipally-run long-term care (LTC) homes in Halton Region, Durham Region and the City of Hamilton by a combined 23% in 2017.  The procurement project also saw a collective increase in offerings of fresh fruits and vegetables to residents by 124%!

To deepen this work, the GHFFA then worked with Halton Region this year to develop the Serving Up Local Training initiative.

Visit the GHFFA website here for more on the project, including access to the Serving Up Local for Long-Term Care Toolkit, the new video, a Manual for Increasing Local Foods in Long-Term Care, case studies and more.

Healthcare facilities looking to boost their mealtime engagement and learn more about putting local on their menus will especially be interested.