From lab-grown meat to farming underground, there are plenty of bold new ideas promising to revolutionise our food system. But what can we do today? The city of Copenhagen is leading the way in making food more sustainable, and its secret weapon is as old as the act of commerce itself: procurement. We talk to Betina Bergmann Madsen, chief procurement consultant in the children and youth department, about her role in Copenhagen’s organic conversion and how that city is using the power of purchasing to drive change.
When it comes to leading examples of urban sustainability, it’s hard to ignore Copenhagen. Ranked third in the Sustainable Cities Index, the Danish capital is well known for its cycleways and progressive environmental policies. And, recently, it has also collected plaudits for its approach to food.
Faced with declining water quality due to pesticides from industrial agriculture, in 2001 the city took the unprecedented step of setting a 90 per cent organic target for all ingredients used across its public kitchens.
The strategy involved two key elements: training public kitchen staff to prepare healthy meals using sustainable, organic ingredients; and restructuring the city’s procurement practices – all within existing budgets.
Suffice it to say that the city’s ambition has paid off. As of 2017, the share of organic ingredients in meals in public canteens in Copenhagen had reached 89 per cent, with many public kitchens either meeting or exceeding the 90 per cent goal. In 2023, the city of Copenhagen achieved a 25 per cent carbon reduction in its food procurement more than a year ahead of targets laid out in the ambitious 2019 food strategy. And, while the credit for the city’s strategy can’t belong to one person alone, Betina Bergmann Madsen has played a crucial role in defining the city’s food procurement policies.
Getting Started in Procurement
Originally set on a career in real estate or at the stock exchange, Betina wasn’t looking for work in the procurement field.
“I knew something about procurement, but it was not something I was really interested in,” she tells us. “I think I sent three applications out … Then I saw this advertisement. It said: ‘If you love food, law, and children apply for this. I went to the interview, and it just felt right.”
Betina’s induction into procurement coincided with the city’s decision to extend the organic conversion strategy to childcare centres in 2009.
As far as a first role goes, it was a big task, involving lengthy consultation with a range of stakeholders, from the other municipal departments and the chefs to the suppliers and ‘conversion agents’ – the contractors charged with building capacity in the kitchen.
“It wasn’t just a conversion of what was on the plate or in the chefs’ minds; it was also a conversion in the minds of the procurement officers,” Betina says.
The difficulty involved in procuring halal slaughtered meat to cater to Copenhagen’s diverse population is just one example of the challenges she faced.
“When I asked for it the first time, in 2010, the butcher said, ‘Nope, it doesn’t exist; it’s not going to exist.’
“I said, ‘Well, I hear you, but we need it. If we do not get organic halal slaughtered meat, we cannot meet our targets. So, I’m going to put it into my procurement. I will not make it mandatory criteria, but you will get a lot of extra points if you can meet my demands.’
“The next time I had a meeting with them – a year later – I asked if we could get organic halal slaughtered meat, and they said, ‘No problem.’”
Open Ears, Open Minds
“I actually think that’s the way of helping – gentle nudging,” Betina says. “It’s all about how I can support our suppliers to be the best version of themselves.”
That said, the balance between the carrot and the stick is a delicate one. Betina believes it’s her talent for listening that has made the difference.
“I’m not a specialist; I’m just a good listener.
“When I do procurement and the tender material, I have to make sure that what I do supports the changes that these people are going through. It should not be a burden for them.
“If I don’t do a great job, I can be one of the factors that means they will not get the proper food for the people who eat it. And then the citizens will actually get a worse meal or suffer.”
To this end, Betina runs working groups with officials from other departments – as well kitchen staff, conversion agents, and suppliers – to anticipate any issues or conflicts.
“I like to take them through the criteria and the things that I’m thinking about to check if it fits their reality, or if it’s something that collides with what they’re doing in their everyday life.
“There’s a lot of collaboration around. But it’s not a burden. I actually find that it ultimately makes the implementation easier.”
It seems to be working. Copenhagen has received so many awards for its sustainable food procurement practices, including one for ‘Sustainable Diet and Nutrition’ in the 2022 Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) and the Procura+ award for Most Sustainable Procurement of the Year, 2021.
Copenhagen: A Good Food City
Despite having achieved its organic conversion, Copenhagen isn’t stopping there.
“We don’t even talk about organic anymore,” says Betina. “It’s a baseline. We want to do more. We want to be more sustainable; we want to reduce C02 emissions; we want to eat even more green.”
Copenhagen is one of 14 signatories to the 2019 Good Food Cities Declaration, under which cities around the world committed to leveraging municipal resources to change the food they purchase through introducing policies that make healthy food affordable and accessible.
This effort, combined with the city’s ambition to become climate neutral by 2025, has added new challenges to Betina’s role.
“Suddenly, the contract matter was not just food; the contract matter was also supporting us in reaching our political goals.”
As well as procuring organic ingredients, she must now consider how to integrate planetary health diet guidelines into her tenders, as well requirements around plastic packaging and environmental impact.
Investigating the implications of each decision can be akin to pulling on a piece of string:
“Every time you turn a stone, you say, ‘Oh my god, there are more stones.’ The more knowledge you get, the more you know what you do not know. Sometimes I can even get scared. I think, ‘What have I started?’ But, then again, if I don’t start, things are worse, right?”
Betina believes her work procuring organic ingredients has proved to be a good basis for implementing the city’s new goals. Although it hasn’t happened in isolation: the city’s culinary advisors, in conjunction with Meyers Madhus, created a database of almost 1,000 climate-friendly, nutritionally balanced recipes to support Copenhagen’s public kitchen staff in creating tasty, organic, sustainable, and healthy meals.
“Working so closely with both the kitchens and the conversion agents – and now the political goals as well – makes you, as a procurement officer, consider more of the effects of all these criteria. That’s actually what I really enjoy now, getting to work with the political goals in the procurement.”
Procuring Change
While Copenhagen’s use of public purchasing power is certainly having an impact, no city – or country, for that matter – is an island when it comes to challenges like food security or the climate crisis. Movement is seen on national and European scales.
In 2018, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency established a National Public Food Procurement Network with the city of Copenhagen serving as chair. It facilitates collaboration between procurement officers across the country to facilitate structured exchange of knowledge, experience, and best practice in public food procurement. This is designed to reinforce and advance food policy objectives, targets, and ambitions.
In January 2023 – as part of the EU project Joint Action Best ReMaP – the Municipality of Copenhagen and EU Commission department on Health and Food Safety achieved the same by launching the European Food Procurement Network. As well as structured knowledge exchange among public procurement professionals, it ensures steps are taken to create a sustainable, healthy, and resilient food system fit for replication elsewhere.
Alongside her work with Copenhagen, Betina is actively involved in developing food procurement policies for both the EU and other international bodies, including writing a UN framework for sustainable procurement closely linked to that above.
Betina understands that approaches will necessarily differ between cities and countries. However, she still believes there are things every city can do.
“Even if your politicians do not have a target for food, you can still do a lot. You can ask for diversity, for example. That does not harm anybody.
“But you should always look at your local context and ask, ‘What are the next step for us to take?’”
Wherever they are, a good procurement officer’s job doesn’t just end with the signing of a contract.
“It’s important that we do not just put the criteria into our procurement; we also need to do the follow up … You have to keep on thinking about how you can do better and how you can improve next time.”
Note: additional material was provided to this article with thanks to Sofie Folsach Rasmussen, project employee and communications consultant at the City of Copenhagen, and Karl Dickinson for CityChangers.org.