Local and nutritious food (ANEL)

Healthcare establishments in Québec have a duty to set an example in terms of the nutritional quality of the food they offer, since they must comply with the standards set out in the healthy eating reference framework of the ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux (MSSS). More recently, the Stratégie nationale d’achat d’aliments québécois (SNAAQ) of the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation (MAPAQ) has extended this exemplary duty by encouraging establishments to increase the proportion of local products in their purchases. The challenge facing establishments is therefore to offer food that is both nutritious and local. However, healthcare establishments may encounter several challenges in increasing local purchasing and reconciling this increase with nutritional quality. Among other things, institutional purchasing is governed by very specific and sometimes complex rules that can make this reconciliation difficult.

What are the challenges and facilitators to integrating a nutritious and local offer in healthcare establishments? What are the best ways of integrating these objectives of origin and nutritional quality into the decision-making processes of healthcare establishments? These are the questions addressed by the ANEL project.

More specifically, the Observatory’s mandate from the MSSS for this project is to design a decision-support tool to help healthcare establishments implement a food offer that is both nutritious and local. This project contributes to objective 3.2.3 of the government’s health prevention policy (PGPS).