The 2022-25 public health policy program of the Quebec province includes several measures addressing the quality of institutional foodservice, particularly in healthcare settings. In parallel, food and agricultural policies have set new food procurement goals designed to increase the share of local purchasing within institutions. These various policy goals arise in a context marked by increasing economic pressures, heightening the call for responsible management of public sector purchases. The successful implementation and monitoring of these measures rely on the availability of comprehensive and province-wide data regarding the quality of meals served in hospitals. Additionally, to ensure that the public health, agricultural and economic policies align with the goal of improving overall food quality, practical tools are required to support meal development and food procurement decisions. This presentation will introduce two projects in which the Observatory contributes directly to addressing these challenges through evidence-based research and collaborative development of tools. The first project aimed to develop and validate a standardized tool allowing a systematic assessment and monitoring of food quality in healthcare establishments throughout the province. The second project led to the development of a tool addressing the challenges of integrating goals of nutritional quality of meals and local procurement within foodservice decision-making processes. Both tools will be introduced, allowing participants to reflect on how to contribute to hospital meals quality improvement through the development of tools aligned with public policies, as well as consider opportunities to further develop coherence between science and public policies through evidence-based, collaborative approaches.
Laure Saulais is a full professor at the Department of Agri-Food Economics and Consumer Sciences at Laval University in Québec City, Canada. She oversees graduate programs in Consumer Science and specializes in behavioral economics and consumer sciences. She is also a researcher at the Centre Interuniversitaire en Analyse des Organisations (CIRANO) and the NUTRISS Research Center within the Institute for Nutrition and Functional Foods (INAF). Her research, mostly funded by governmental organizations, explores the demand-side perspective of food system sustainability with the aim of supporting the transition towards more sustainable food consumption models. The focus of her work is specifically on food system actors’ decisions, both at the levels of individual consumers and at that of stakeholders. Within Quebec's Food Quality Observatory, she currently leads two projects focusing on food procurement decision-making within institutional foodservice: project ANEL, which examines the conditions for ensuring nutritious and local meals in healthcare settings; and project AMiS, which aims to support decision-making for healthier snacks in primary schools.