WORKPLACE FOOD ENVIRONMENT
ENACT STRATEGY: Food Policy
Establish comprehensive purchasing policies and nutrition standards to ensure cafeteria meals and vending machines include healthy and sustainable choices
Just as children and youth need nutritious foods to thrive at school, adults also benefit from the presence of healthy, nutritious foods and beverages. Regulations about which foods to serve in employee cafeterias and vending machines can vary -- from standards that follow the USDA's nutrition guidelines to those that limit or completely eliminate junk food and ensure that healthy options are available. Nutrition is one element of developing standards for food purchasing, but worksites can establish policies that support foods that have been produced in a sustainable manner. Elements of sustainably produced foods can include local/regional foods, organic and/or food produced without pesticides, hormones, or chemicals, antibiotic-free meat and poultry, dairy, humane treatment towards animals, and just treatment of farm workers. Regardless of the standards that are adopted, it is important to set in place very specific guidelines that support the food policy. Applying nutrition, health and environmental standards to cafeteria meals and vending machines items will provide employees with healthy food options and promote overall well being.
Food policies can reflect the following characteristics:
- Nutrition standards including guidelines on calories, fat, trans fat, sodium, fiber, etc.
- Location: within a certain number of miles from the institution, regional food, state grown food
- Food produced without synthetic chemicals or pesticides, antibiotics, or growth hormone
- Supports small and mid-sized farmers
- Fair treatment of and wages for farmworkers
- Farming and food production practices that protect the environment
- Animal welfare
- Fair trade
Food and Food Purchasing: A Role for Health Care (PDF)
Though developed with healthcare institutions in mind, this brochure provides basic information for all worksites in interested in purchasing local and sustainable foods that will impact community health on several levels.
Serving Local Food at Your Meeting (PDF)
This document is a quick and easy pamphlet provide by the Society for Nutrition Education, on why and how to bring local produce to your meetings and conferences.
NIH Worksite Health Promotion Program
The program uses a green and white label affixed to vending machines identifying the selection criteria, and arrows point to Better Choices Snack items.
These vending guidelines are developed by the Fit City Initiative campaign in San Antonio to help worksites develop their own vending policies.
Building a Successful Local Food Model – Tips for Institutional Buyers
This is a quick guide for food purchasers for larger institutions that would like to start purchasing sustainable foods and establish a sustainable food purchasing policy.
A Guide to Developing a Sustainable Food Purchasing Policy (PDF)
This document created by Food Alliance is intended to help institutions and those advocating for food system change, create, promote and implement practical sustainable food purchasing policies.
Healthy Vending Guidelines (PDF)
This is a tool that was developed for San Antonio, Texas, but can be applicable to anyone wanting to provide healthier food choices in their vending machines.
This site includes many tools that are beneficial to any workplace working to create sustainable food purchasing polices.
A comprehensive toolkit with resources for developing and implementing a vending policy. Key steps and lessons learned are shared from five successful vending policy efforts.
The Fit Business Kit iis a suite of no-cost tools and resources is provided by the California 5 a Day—Be Active! Worksite Program to help employers develop and implement a culture and environment at their workplaces that support healthy eating and physical activity habits among workers. Examples of healthy dining menu guidelines and vending machine nutrition standards are included.
Healthy Food in Health Care: A Pledge for Fresh, Local, Sustainable Food (PDF)
Though created with hospitals in mind, this pledge developed by Health Care without is a framework that other institutions working to develop food purchasing policies that support health and the environment can use as a guide.
Woodbury, IA Local Food Purchase Policy
The Local Food Policy for Woodbury County requires the County to purchase locally organic food, through its food service contractor, when County departments serve food in their usual course of business.
Clark County, WA Worksite Wellness Nutrition Policy
This policy establishes healthy food and beverage purchase guidelines for a variety of county food purchases such as events, meeting, and vending machines.
Contra Costa County, CA Vending Machine Policy
This policy requires that 50% food and beverages sold in vending machines in County owned or operated facilities meet specific nutrition standards.
Chula Vista, CA Vending Policy
All public vending machines in any City of Chula Vista facility shall contain 100% healthy snack and beverage offerings.
Worksite Wellness Program for Tompkins County, NY
This website provides five sample policy statements for encouraging healthy food choices at the worksite.
in ENACT Local Policy Database
Sustainable Food Policy Project
The Sustainable Food Policy Project’s goal is to support efforts by educational, healthcare and other institutions to have a positive impact on the food system through purchasing. The website is a resources for other food purchasing policies, food policy language and articulation, and provides a space for learning and lessons learned.
Creating Healthy Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental Approaches**
This review describes an ecological framework for conceptualizing the many food environments and conditions that influence food choices, with an emphasis on current knowledge regarding the home, child care, school, after-school, work site, retail store, and restaurant settings.
Story M, Kaphingst K, Robinson-O’Brien R, and Glanz K. Creating healthy Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental Approaches. Annual Review of Public Health. 2008. 29: 6.1–6.20
** We can only provide links to the study abstracts and not the full text.