Buying Better Food and Drink

Summary

All public sector organisations can use this agreement to buy food and drink through a single on-line access point. You will be able to access all food and drink sub-categories.

Updates

01/08/2023: This procurement is now live. See the Contract Notice in Find a Tender Service (FTS) and the timeline

Description

The aim of this agreement is to support sustainability, food quality and welfare standards by meeting the Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering (GBSF). It also aims to:

• reduce food and packaging waste
• reduce food miles
• invest in local communities and improve equality and diversity
• reduce modern slavery risks

We will shorten supply chains by simplifying the customer journey, helping you to meet your carbon net zero targets. To do this, the agreement will be managed with an online single access point. The platform for this online single access point will be provided by the winning bidder.

Social value will play a key part in the food supply and delivery solution which will support:

• tackling economic equality
• local education and health
• tackling equal opportunity
• promoting wellbeing
• helping public sector bodies to buy food in a sustainable way
• helping SMEs to supply public sector contracts

Benefits

• easy to use for customers

  • public sector customers will benefit from a simplified route to market

  • a single access point, offering an easy to use, digital solution

  • simple ordering and invoicing

  • all food and drink needs available in one place

  • reduced number of deliveries

• free to access: all public sector buyers can use this agreement for free and will not need any upfront funding

• opportunities for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

  • support the 8,285 SME food and drink sector suppliers: DEFRA Food statistics.

  • enables public sector customers to have simple access to the (SME) suppliers

  • customers will be able to nominate additional suppliers or producers to the agreement

  • we will monitor and target increased SME supplier participation during the lifetime of the agreement to support government targets

• single point of contact

  • this approach enables a single point of contact for ease of management, access to real time information on deliveries, high standards of food safety, and an efficient food supply solution for customers

• confidence of buying through CCS

  • we vet and reviews suppliers regularly. This saves you time finding suppliers and checking their reliability

  • suppliers comply with Carbon Net Zero and Social Value policy obligations

  • contracts comply with public sector procurement regulations

  • meet minimum food safety, ethical and environmental policies including the updated Government Buying Standards for Food (GBSF)

• • support investment in local communities, equality and diversity, reduction in Modern Slavery risks, resource efficiency and environmental sustainability

Documents

RM6279 Buying better foods frequently asked questions

Important links

Prior Information Notice (PIN)	Read PIN
Contract Notice in Find a Tender Service (FTS)	Contract notice
Tender documents	Download documents

Timeline

Activity	Estimated dates
Pre-market engagement	to June 2023
Drafting of procurement documents	to July 2023
Publication of FTS notice	1 August 2023 to 28 September 2023
Agreement award	January 2024
Go Live	Spring 2024