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The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital

Local food procurement by public institutions such as hospitals offers multiple benefits including stimulating the local economy, creating jobs, and building resilience within the food supply. Yet no published study has attempted to quantify the local food purchase by hospitals. This baseline is nee...

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Autores principales: Faulkner, Kathy, Gilbertson, Heather, Porter, Judi, Collins, Jorja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8965589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35369104
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.771742
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author Faulkner, Kathy
Gilbertson, Heather
Porter, Judi
Collins, Jorja
author_facet Faulkner, Kathy
Gilbertson, Heather
Porter, Judi
Collins, Jorja
author_sort Faulkner, Kathy
collection PubMed
description Local food procurement by public institutions such as hospitals offers multiple benefits including stimulating the local economy, creating jobs, and building resilience within the food supply. Yet no published study has attempted to quantify the local food purchase by hospitals. This baseline is needed to identify gaps, set targets, and monitor change. The objective of this study was to investigate the origin of food supplied to a metro tertiary public hospital and to describe the proportion of food budget spent on items with ingredients grown in Australia and “locally” within the state of Victoria. Food procurement data were collected and analyzed during October 2020-April 2021. All items purchased by the cook fresh kitchen supplying meals to inpatients and two childcare centres during an 8-day menu cycle period were audited. Following an inspection of food packaging labels to determine country of origin, data on the proportion of Victorian content were collected from manufacturers and suppliers of foods containing Australian ingredient. Almost 80% of the food budget (AU $17,748 and 200 items) was spent on items containing significant (at least 75%) Australian content, while 11% was spent on entirely imported foods. The specific geographic origins of 55% of the budget spent on “Australian” food remain unknown as information from manufacturers and suppliers was not available. Where data were available, 3% of food budget was attributed to entirely Victorian grown foods, including fresh fruit, vegetables, and poultry. A considerable proportion of Australian grown foods are purchased by this hospital, but it is largely unknown whether these are local, from the state of Victoria, or not. Tracing and sharing of food origin data, a clear definition for “local” food, and an understanding of Victorian food growing industries are needed to progress the “local food to hospital” agenda.
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spelling pubmed-89655892022-03-31 The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital Faulkner, Kathy Gilbertson, Heather Porter, Judi Collins, Jorja Front Nutr Nutrition Local food procurement by public institutions such as hospitals offers multiple benefits including stimulating the local economy, creating jobs, and building resilience within the food supply. Yet no published study has attempted to quantify the local food purchase by hospitals. This baseline is needed to identify gaps, set targets, and monitor change. The objective of this study was to investigate the origin of food supplied to a metro tertiary public hospital and to describe the proportion of food budget spent on items with ingredients grown in Australia and “locally” within the state of Victoria. Food procurement data were collected and analyzed during October 2020-April 2021. All items purchased by the cook fresh kitchen supplying meals to inpatients and two childcare centres during an 8-day menu cycle period were audited. Following an inspection of food packaging labels to determine country of origin, data on the proportion of Victorian content were collected from manufacturers and suppliers of foods containing Australian ingredient. Almost 80% of the food budget (AU $17,748 and 200 items) was spent on items containing significant (at least 75%) Australian content, while 11% was spent on entirely imported foods. The specific geographic origins of 55% of the budget spent on “Australian” food remain unknown as information from manufacturers and suppliers was not available. Where data were available, 3% of food budget was attributed to entirely Victorian grown foods, including fresh fruit, vegetables, and poultry. A considerable proportion of Australian grown foods are purchased by this hospital, but it is largely unknown whether these are local, from the state of Victoria, or not. Tracing and sharing of food origin data, a clear definition for “local” food, and an understanding of Victorian food growing industries are needed to progress the “local food to hospital” agenda. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8965589/ /pubmed/35369104 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.771742 Text en Copyright © 2022 Faulkner, Gilbertson, Porter and Collins. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Faulkner, Kathy
Gilbertson, Heather
Porter, Judi
Collins, Jorja
The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital
title The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital
title_full The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital
title_fullStr The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital
title_full_unstemmed The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital
title_short The Origins of Food Supplied to an Australian Public Hospital
title_sort origins of food supplied to an australian public hospital
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8965589/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35369104
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.771742
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