Innovation Processes in Large-Scale Public Foodservice-Case Findings from the Implementation of Organic Foods in a Danish County

Many governments have through the declaration adopted at the world summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, committed themselves to a common political goal of sustainable development. The declaration points out that both production- and consumption patterns have to change in order to reach this goal. Since one of the most important areas both socially and environmentally is production and consumption of food, some individual European governments have worked out action plans setting out concrete goals for conversion of arable land from conventional to organic.

One of the emerging areas for attention is the idea that the large-scale foodservice such as hospital food service should adopt a buy organic policy due to their large buying volume. But whereas implementation of organic foods has developed quite unproblematically in smaller institutions such as kindergartens and nurseries, introduction of organic foods into large-scale foodservice such as that taking place in hospitals and larger homes for the elderly, has proven to be quite difficult.

The very complex planning, procurement and processing procedures used in such facilities are among reasons for this. Against this background an evaluation was carried out of the change process related implementation of organic foods in large-scale foodservice facilities in Greater Copenhagen county in order to study the effects of such a change.

Based on the findings, a set of guidelines has been developed for the successful implementation of organic foods into the large-scale foodservice. The findings and guidelines are however applicable to other types of innovation processes in food service.