Local Food in City Hall

As we're working on increasing the City's support for local foods through the Homegrown Minneapolis Implementation Task Force, it's great to be able to communicate an important and symbolic success: local food is coming to City Hall.



The old food vendor in City Hall (the Clock Tower Cafe) has chosen not to renew its contract. This created an opening to get both healthier options and more local food into that space. Along with my colleague Betsy Hodges and staff from the Department of Health and Family Support, I strongly advocated to the Metropolitan Building Commission (or MBC, the City/County organization that actually controls City Hall) that they write support for healthy, local foods into their Request for Proposals.



They did so, and my office helped connect them to the folks in the local food community who participated in Homegrown Phase I. Then we crossed our fingers and hoped that some local food entrepreneur would send in a good proposal.



Earlier this month, we received some good news from MBC staff: they have chosen to contract with a business called Local D'Lish, that focuses on local, healthy foods. I consider this a great step forward, and a fitting symbol of the City's commitment to the local food economy as we move forward on implementing the Homegrown recommendations.