In January, the Healthy Students Amendment Act (HSAA), which incorporated the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), passed into law in Washington, DC, making the DC school system the fifth in the country to adopt the program. The GFPP was originally created by the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and the Center for Good Food Purchasing. The program prioritizes sustainability, local economies, nutrition, and animal welfare. After kicking off in Los Angeles in 2012, the GFPP has since been adopted by several cities and school districts across the nation. In Washington, it will provide healthier meals to thousands of students while promoting higher-welfare living conditions for farm animals.
AWI helped draft the animal welfare standards for the GFPP, which call for participating public institutions (1) to obtain animal products from suppliers whose higher-welfare practices are third-party certified and/or (2) to replace some percentage of animal products with equivalent plant-based protein. AWI staff members testified before the DC City Council in support of the GFPP and the HSAA, and AWI is part of a broad coalition of local and national organizations that worked with the council to get the bill passed.