First Movers Coalition for Food 2026

2Best practices to scale up resilient, sustainable food procurement Resilient and sustainable procurement in food systems is achievable, but getting there requires evolving traditional structures and thinking. This chapter presents best practices for scaling-up resilient, sustainable food procurement. It outlines the following strategies, illustrated with examples from corporate members of the First Movers Coalition for Food: Build sourcing maturity to scale up for success. A three-step maturity ladder illustrates how companies can move from basic sustainability improvements to connected procurement models capable of embedding resilient, sustainable sourcing across business operations. Calibrate strategy and prioritize sourcing pathway, based on each commodity’s sourcing context and characteristics and each company’s level of dependence on existing suppliers and supply-sheds. Identify strategic sourcing pathways for scale, by choosing between two potential pathways for growing resilient, sustainable food procurement – spec-anchored and/or decoupled sourcing. Strengthen partnerships and align corporate operations, to help unlock change at scale, such as: industry-wide partnerships where appropriate and operational alignment across procurement, sustainability and finance.1 2 3 4