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Rules Committee advances ordinance to keep hospital and jail food-purchasing standards, removes near-term farm sourcing dates
Summary
The Rules Committee forwarded an amended ordinance that would keep food-purchasing goals for San Francisco hospitals and jails in the Administrative Code indefinitely, removing near-term deadlines for sourcing from medium and small farms and duplicating the file for further departmental analysis.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Rules Committee voted on July 28, 2025, to forward an amended ordinance that would amend the Administrative Code to retain city standards for food purchasing at hospitals and city jails and to remove specified near-term sourcing deadlines for medium and small farms.
The ordinance, reintroduced by Supervisor Shamone Walton, would raise several procurement goals for health and corrections facilities — for hospitals the proposal raised the target for sourcing from small and medium-sized farms to 15% and for jails it would increase local food purchasing to 40% and double targets for pesticide-free foods — and would require public disclosure of vendor labor violations. The measure also keeps reporting requirements in effect indefinitely rather than allowing the program to sunset.
“...this is about making sure our food spending reflects our values,” Supervisor Walton said, adding the changes “support better health, labor protections, and stronger communities.” Walton acknowledged the Department of Public Health (DPH) requested more time to evaluate the new goals during the August recess and moved to duplicate the file and remove two specific timeline lines on page 6 that read, in part, “source 5% of food from medium and small farms by January 2027 and increase sourcing to 10 to 15% by January 2028.”
Deputy City Attorneys Valerie Lopez and Anne Pearson, the Good Food Purchasing Coalition and Walton’s staff were listed in the committee discussion as contributors to the ordinance’s drafting. During public comment Katie Atman, deputy director at Fullwell (a local nonprofit), spoke in support of continuing the policy, stating San Francisco has “been committed to these values for the last 5 years” and urging the committee to “keep moving towards” the stated goals.
On Walton’s motion to remove the two near-term sourcing deadlines and send the amended file as a committee report to the full board, the clerk recorded unanimous ayes from Vice Chair Cheryl, President Mandelmann and Chair Walton; the motion passed without objection. The committee also voted to continue the duplicated file to the call of the chair to allow DPH additional time to analyze the goals.
Committee members said they will bring an additional amendment at the full Board meeting to add a sunset date that the committee and departments can consider working together to finalize. The ordinance requires the Department of Public Health and the Sheriff’s Department to report progress every two years under the proposed language.
The amended and duplicated files will appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda unless otherwise noted; the clerk announced items today were expected to appear on the board agenda of Sept. 2, 2025.
