Roadmap for City Food Sector Innovation and Investment

Local governments are increasingly interested in developing their local food systems to realize both local economic and job creation benefits, and also public health, environmental and social benefits. But where and how to invest are often challenging questions for cities to answer.

On July 26, 2013, the cities of San Francisco, Minneapolis, Portland (Oregon), Seattle and Vancouver (British Columbia) released a Roadmap for City Food Sector Innovation and Investment. The Roadmap provides cities with guidance for developing a local foods investment strategy and selecting the best investment opportunities to create new jobs and strengthen local businesses while increasing a community's access to healthy, local and sustainably grown foods. Media Release: click here to learn more about the Roadmap report.

Diagram of food sector visioning process

What Will the Roadmap Provide?

The Roadmap outlines steps to establish a local vision, inventory and map their food assets and gaps, evaluate investment options and manage financial risk, as well as select municipal policies and initiatives that can improve the success of local food entrepreneurs and local businesses. In addition, the Roadmap also presents a review of the range of local economic benefits of conventional and innovative food businesses found during the project's comprehensive scan of local and national economic data on job creation and business viability in the food sector.