Economic evaluation summary

The year 1 and year 2 of the economic evaluation found that:

The Project revealed opportunities to develop links with farmers and local economies through hospital procurement.

The Project achieved a shift from the first year where the evaluation found all four hospitals to be primarily sourcing non-organic food from a small pool or national and multinational companies to the second year where one of the hospitals was buying:

directly from a regional farm
organic dried goods from a local business in north London
buying regional organic meat

The public sector had the power to shift how their suppliers sourced their produce, for example the Royal Brompton was able to persuade Medina to source organic milk when they had previously been an entirely non-organic dairy.

Analysis at the whole supply chain level increases the difficulty of sourcing locally and/ or organically. None of the supply chains created met these criteria across their whole supply chains.

Wider economic implications

The evaluation found there to be other criteria in addition to local and organic that have important economic, social and environmental impacts:

food miles
type of supplier
relationship between the hospital and the producer
relative wealth of local economies
wellbeing and relationships
the quality of the food procured

There are trade-offs when trying to simultaneously support areas facing economic disadvantage, farmers, organic farming, the local economy of the hospital and the region.