The Benefits of Food Choice and Sustainability in Healthcare Procurement

What is sustainable food purchasing?

Sustainable food purchasing is defined as food procurement that promotes quality and safety. It focuses on eliminating the additives and contaminants in menu offerings by crafting a well-rounded and sustainable food system. When a hospital system incorporates sustainable food procurement, their supply chain and usage behaviors can promote long-term efficiencies and process improvements.

Why is food sustainability important in hospital procurement?

In healthcare supply chain management, your hospital system looks to choose products that increase the quality of care for patients and improve the operational components of your facility. When crafting your procurement strategy, it is vital to include sustainable food product choices.

Hospital supply chains can benefit and reap many advantages of sustainable food purchasing including:

• More nutrient-rich and diet-friendly food for patients. Sustainable food offerings can provide greater nutrients and food value to patients. When feeding patients with modified diets or dietary restrictions, having a breadth of sustainable offerings can add variety and increase the quality of nutrition in your hospital food service’s meals.
• Better supplier relationships. In a hospital supply chain, you have many supplier relationships to manage. Sustainable food purchasing can help by catering to group purchasing organizations and broadline vendors that have the availability your healthcare setting needs.
• Reduce waste. By controlling what you order and knowing where your spend and resources are allocated, you can reduce waste in your hospital’s supply chain. 
• Increase efficiency and productivity levels. A sustainable food system and supply chain can elevate process improvement in your healthcare setting. 

How can DSSI support food sustainability?

Evaluating and incorporating the importance of sustainable food procurement can bring process improvement and cost savings potential to your hospital’s supply chain. DSSI can help you achieve the benefits of sustainable food purchasing with:

• Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) and broadline vendors. By working with group purchasing organizations down to broadline vendors, DSSI helps ensure that healthcare procurement is positioned to include optimized food choice and sustainability for your unique healthcare setting.
• Food procurement spend analysis. DSSI can help you conduct a food procurement spend analysis so you can drill down on specific product costs. Our eProcurement system allows you the ability to digitally see how you can deploy your food savings.