The Impact of State Farm to School Procurement Incentives on School Purchasing Decisions

The most recent Farm to School (FTS) Census reported that of the 42% of US schools that participate in FTS, 77% procure food locally. In 2019, Colorado joined many other states in passing legislation that provides per-meal incentives for purchasing local foods. However, little is known about how these incentives impact procurement decisions of school Food Service Directors (FSDs), and purported benefits of FTS cannot accrue without additional local purchases by school FSDs.

We constructed a unique, primary dataset of fresh fruit and vegetable purchases from 18 months of school invoices in 3 Northern Colorado school districts and parameterized an optimization model that mimics FSD decisions. Subsequently, we simulated how procurement is impacted by local food reimbursements.

Assuming 2017 and 2018 purchasing behavior, at $0.05 per meal reimbursement, FSDs would increase fresh fruit and vegetable purchasing by 11-12% in August-October, but by only 0-1% in November-December, likely due to seasonality constraints.

While an increase in FTS procurement was expected, the magnitude of the potential increase when aligned with the Colorado growing season is notable. This work underscores that adequately funded reimbursement-based FTS policies can increase FTS procurement without disrupting normal cost-minimizing purchasing behavior.