Minneapolis Food Policy Council

This morning, the Council unanimously voted to create Minneapolis's first Food Policy Council.

This was one of the key recommendations from the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative, all the way back to the first phase, in which we went out and heard from the community about their ideas for how the City could help the local food movement.

This Food Policy Council will carry on the City's work on those of the other recommendations from Homegrown Minneapolis that have not been completed as part of Phase II.  In addition, it will be in place to advise the Council and Mayor on other food-related issues - trans fats, calorie labeling, etc.

I am very pleased that the Council has taken this action, especially with such a strong show of support.  I look forward to working with the Mayor and others on finding the right people to serve on the first 'class' of this group.

I want to thank the fantastic staff for the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative, June Mathiowetz, for all of her work on this.  I also want to thank Julie Ristau, one of the original inspirations for the Homegrown Minneapolis initiative, for her hours and hours of work on this, including research into best practices from other cities' food policy councils and community conversations about how a food policy council should be structured.

This is a great step forward for local food in Minneapolis.