The Chautauqua County Food Policy Council was created to bring together stakeholders within the local food system to strengthen and build healthy sustainable communities.

Our mission is to educate, support, and connect producers, processors, distributors, transporters, agencies, and consumers to work towards an efficient, effective, and sustainable food system that is economically viable, accessible, and enhances community food security.

By bringing together stakeholders from all sectors of the local food system, the Council envisions that all residents will have access to affordable, culturally appropriate, and nutritious food through sustainable agricultural and food business systems to promote the local economy.

The food system incorporates all of the steps that food takes – from growing in a field, to your dinner table, and beyond! The food system includes all processes involved in keeping us fed: growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, aggregating, transporting, marketing, consuming and disposing of food.

Food policy councils can take a number of forms. A food policy council is a collaborative organization made up of stakeholders representing various sectors working to improve their local food system. By bringing these stakeholders together, they can work toward making improvements throughout the system.