Soil Association Exchange is set to deliver the environmental measures for farms in public sector purchasing as part of the Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) Buying Better Food and Drink agreement. This agreement is available for all UK public sector organisations to use for buying food and drink through a single online access point, which is to be provided by Entegra using AgileChain technology by Equilibrium Markets Ltd following a tender process in 2023.
As well as a shift to more dynamic food procurement – which removes barriers to allow small producers to contribute to larger public sector orders – the updated service will also use Exchange’s holistic farm assessments for sustainability. Exchange measures the environmental impact of farm operations by assessing six key areas – soil, water, carbon, animal welfare, social impacts, and biodiversity. It does this by collecting data through on the ground farm surveys, satellite imagery and other datasets on metrics like soil carbon and bird counts, alongside considering the food production and community benefits a farm provides.
Holistic farm sustainability metrics Soil Association Exchange Chief Executive Joseph Gridley said: “It is hugely important for our public institutions to serve food that supports sustainable, British farm businesses and we are excited to start delivering data that will help to make this easier. Exchange is already working with hundreds of farms who have helped to develop our wide-ranging sustainability metrics.”
Buyers can express interest in the Buying Better Food & Drink agreement, which is due to launch in late 2024.
Food procurers in the public sector can express their interest now by emailing buyingbetter@entegraps.uk.
Any farmer can get involved by obtaining a sustainability score from Soil Association Exchange for free at www.soilassociationexchange.com.
