40% Local and Sustainable Panel Meeting – 11/27/17

Agenda:

  • Review of meeting agenda
  • Last call for 12/7 presentation items
  • 15 minute briefing from Kareem Usher on his Food Panel related research project
  • 15 minute briefing from Shoshanah Inwood on her research with Vermont hospitals on institutional purchasing
  • Spring 2018 meeting schedule discussion
  • Workgroup updates
  • Reminder about end Dec 2017 workgroup report deadlines

Participants:

Present:

Kate Bartter

Sophie Chang

Jill Clark

Mike Folino (alternate for Julie Jones)

Lesa Holford (alternate for Zia Ahmed)

Casey Hoy

Graham Oberly

Nicole Pierron Rasul

Tom Reeves (alternate for Molly Calhoun)

Leslie Schaller

Ryan Schmiesing

Josh Shekhtman (alternate for Emily Hayden)

Mike Shelton

Brian Snyder

Colleen Spees

Kareem Usher

Thelma Velez

David Wituszynski

Unavailable:

Matt Brown

Nick Kawa

Gina Langen

Mallory Reynolds (or alternate Stephanie Li)

Minutes:

Review of meeting agenda

  • No additions/changes

Last call for 12/7 presentation items

  • Send content for presentations to Brian Snyder by COB Wed 11/29

Briefing from Kareem Usher on his Food Panel related research project

  • Community-university partnerships on food procurement – specific research focus on South Linden neighborhood

Briefing from Shoshanah Inwood on her research with Vermont hospitals on institutional purchasing

  • UVM Medical Center research – Shoshanah to share PPT, not to be shared beyond panel
  • OSU Medical Center to possibly host a meal for food panel to overview their food program

Spring 2018 meeting schedule discussion

  • To be scheduled for Mondays at 3pm twice a month – Nicole Pierron Rasul to send out Outlook invites
  • Workgroups to also meet twice per month during the spring semester – Nicole Pierron Rasul to work with workgroup chairs to establish meeting dates for groups

Workgroup updates

  • Data Metrics, Sourcing and Transparency: Making progress at getting total spend data; focusing on ongoing record-keeping and bullet points for end Dec deadline that look at date from a FY17 snapshot
  • Definitions and Criteria: Working on reviewing the group’s decision points to-date, new decision points decided at the last workgroup meeting regarding approving certifications:

-We want independent, third-party certifications, defined as designations made by agents/persons directly representing neither the location (farm or business) nor an industry group that is promoting that farm or business. Key is to avoid conflicts of interest to the extent possible.

-Whatever certification is used includes an onsite inspection regimen specifying that every site is available for inspection and would be visited on some regular basis that is clearly stated.

-Our list of “things we care about” in the sustainability matrix, which can be edited from time to time, is all fair game in regards to considering whether a certain certification would be suitable for our purposes.

  • Governance: Individuals in the group have met with reps from Dining Services and the OSU Medical Center to learn more about how they make purchasing decisions – the group will present the information they collected to the full panel shortly
  • Communications: No update but in Dec will be working with Data Metrics, Sourcing and Transparency group on creating infographics for website for year-end reporting goal

Reminder about end Dec 2017 workgroup report deadlines

  • 12/31 deadline to send completed reports to Nicole Pierron Rasul; Jan 2018 will focus on creating a progress report from info reported