Center for Regional Food Systems

This brief summarizes progress to date of the Cultivate Michigan campaign.

Cultivate Michigan is the local food purchasing campaign of the Michigan Farm to Institution Network. When institutions join the campaign, food service professionals have an opportunity to track their food purchases through an online dashboard. This is one way to measure progress towards the Michigan Good Food Charter goal of institutions sourcing 20% Michigan foods by 2020.

Participation in the campaign continues to grow. Nearly 90 institutions and other businesses are now Cultivate Michigan members, including 14 that have joined over approximately the last year and a half.

The Cultivate Michigan campaign asks institutions to track Michigan and total spending for major food categories as well as Cultivate Michigan featured foods — Michigan agricultural products that are featured on a seasonal basis. By the end of 2018, 20 foods had been featured through Cultivate Michigan.

This brief includes information on Cultivate Michigan featured food purchases from the 57 schools and districts that participated in the 10 Cents a Meal for School Kids and Farms Pilot (10 Cents) in the 2018-2019 school year. 10 Cents is a state-funded match incentive reimbursement program to encourage the purchase and use of Michigan-grown fruits, vegetables, and legumes in participating school food service programs.

Based on available data, institutions are purchasing a wide range of the Cultivate Michigan featured foods. Looking at the forms of the foods purchased shows there is significant opportunity for Michigan suppliers to provide more minimally processed Michigan-grown foods.

Download the file to dive deeper into the data!