The Prime Minister has announced a new food and drink buying standard – ‘The Plan for Public Procurement’. The voluntary Plan involves the use of a scorecard and an e-marketplace and focuses on: provision of a toolkit which enables food procurers to consider a variety of factors when making decisions about procurement; working with industry, procurers, researchers and farmers to support opportunities for British grown produce and food within the public procurement market; ongoing work to develop the toolkit through five different working groups covering procurers, suppliers, research and technology bodies (focusing on innovation), assurance schemes and Local Enterprise Partnerships. Public sector buyers will now judge potential suppliers against five key criteria: how food is produced and whether the food was produced locally; the health and nutritional content of food purchased; the resource efficiency of producing the food, such as water and energy use and waste production; how far the food bought meets government’s socio-economic priorities such as involvement of SMEs.