NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services and Food First NL

The newly established Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services provides health care to the entire province across 42 facilities in four regional health zones, with a total of 803 beds. This team will be building on their work in the previous Anchor Cohort, starting with a focus on the Labrador Grenfell Zone, which operates with a food service budget of $4.3M and serves 215,775.00 meals annually.

Food First NL is a nonprofit organization with a province-wide mandate to advance the right to food in Newfoundland and Labrador. They bring a high-capacity team, an extensive network, a prominent provincial and national profile, and significant matching resources to this work.

This team’s anticipated project focus includes:

• Solidifying supplier relationships and processes by being a critical bridge between health care systems and Indigenous communities, organizations, and governments. 

• Including more local plant-based foods within the work by developing strategic partnerships with food producers and support organizations (such as the Pye Centre for Northern Boreal Food Systems).

• Convening around regulatory reform by continuing their work from the previous Anchor Cohort to make wild game widely available in health care. 

• Leveraging provincial transformation by aligning with two of the biggest system shifts in the history of health care in Newfoundland and Labrador - the implementation of the early pieces of the Health Accord, and the merger of their four health authorities into a single provincial health authority.