This paper traces the partnership between the University of Toronto and the non-profit Local Food Plus (LFP) to bring local sustainable food to its St. George campus. At its launch, the partnership represented the largest purchase of local sustainable food at a Canadian university, as well as LFP’s first foray into supporting institutional procurement of local sustainable food. LFP was founded in 2005 with a vision to foster sustainable local food economies. To this end, LFP developed a certification system and a marketing program that matched certified farmers and processors to buyers. LFP emphasized large-scale purchases by public institutions. Using information from in-depth semi-structured key informant interviews, this paper argues that the LFP project was a disruptive innovation that posed a challenge to many dimensions of the established food system. The LFP case study reveals structural obstacles to operationalizing a local and sustainable food system. These include a lack of mid-sized infrastructure serving local farmers, the domination of a rebate system of purchasing controlled by an oligopolistic foodservice sector, and embedded government support of export agriculture. This case study is an example of praxis, as the author was the founder of LFP, as well as an academic researcher and analyst.

Les chercheurs doivent citer ce travail comme suit :

• Stahlbrand, L., (2025), "Disruptive innovation and operationalization in local and sustainable food systems: Examining the University of Toronto-Local Food Plus partnership", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.269)

  Copy Citation | Export metadata as... | JSON | CSV | RO-Crate | BibTex | EndNote

1. institutional procurement
2. Local Food Plus (LFP)
3. Local Food Systems
4. sustainable food
5. university foodservice

Original publication: Stahlbrand, Lori. "Disruptive innovation and operationalization in local and sustainable food systems: Examining the University of Toronto-Local Food Plus partnership." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 6, no. 1, 2019, pp. 120-139. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i1.269. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.