Nowadays, as public procurers on the contracting side, we experience more and more often that public procurement procedures for the procurement of food are concluded without results because the tenders are not technically able to keep up with the price increase. We all know what is behind this situation, but it is interesting to note here the research by Elements on how energy prices have affected food prices in the past decades.

Since Russia intervened in Ukraine, disturbances in the energy supply have affected food prices and consumer sentiment. Based on data from the World Bank, the above infographic presents the energy crises of the past half century and what this means for the world economy in the future.

The research highlights three main effects:

• rising global inflation,
• slower global economic growth,
• increasing food shortages and growing risk of civil disorder.

“While the situation in developing countries is getting more and more critical, Europe is also facing difficulties, and Hungary is not an exception.”

What does this mean from the customer’s side? Food purchases require more and more serious consideration in terms of pricing techniques, and the importance of preliminary market consultation is increasing (EPK). Even though it is quite difficult to address the market, many EPKs are concluded unsuccessfully due to lack of interest, because the economic actors assume inflexible pricing, so they try to contract in the private sector.

“This does not have to be the case! Based on a predetermined methodology, by incorporating sufficiently flexible calculation mechanisms, even monthly pricing can be solved in a public procurement procedure.”

It is also important to raise awareness among actors in the food sector, because they often stay away from public procurement procedures due to unfounded fears. EPK is still one of the best tools for involving economic actors, despite the above. Let’s strive for a real consultation, even to learn about and implement pricing techniques proven in the private sector if the law allows for it!

Do you need professional help? Feel free to contact us!

Spotlight: Food saving event organization

In December 2022, dr. Orsolya Barna LLM, our accredited public procurement consultant, won 1st place in the Public Procurement Authority’s Sustainability Award for the green, food-saving festival event organizer procurement of the Kék Bolygó Climate Protection Foundation.

With the permission of the Public Procurement Authority

Considering that sustainability is extremely important to the Foundation, there was no question that we wanted to organize a green festival, and accordingly acquire a partner through green public procurement, so that the green elements were realized both in the tender and during the implementation. The motto of the Festival was REMAKE IT GREEN! We tried to implement the sustainability requirements at the conceptual level, which we incorporated into the theme, the use of materials, and the organization. The tender was submitted through an open procedure according to the EU policy.

“As a first step, we incorporated green and sustainability requirements into the implementation, we focused on food conservation and waste recycling.”

The tasks of the winning tenderer were the following:

• emphasizing that the festival is environmentally friendly,
• using „green” catering,
• dog-friendly outdoor programs,
• renewal as compliance with the motto
• inviting future visitors to fill out the ecological footprint questionnaire on the festival’s website through a media campaign.

The basic conditions for reducing our environmental impact among others, are the conscious use of energy and water, the transportation and travel of guests, sustainable catering, and waste management. During the preparation, the contracting authority already studied how to save food during the event, especially concerning the reception planned for the awardees.

“Before and during the event, it was essential to inform the guests about the effort against food waste and also to involve the participants.”

It is important that the guests also agree with the goal and are partners in achieving it, along with the fact that they (correctly) think that this also means financial savings for the organizer. For the sake of this, the contracting authority defined the menu in advance in the announcement, and also communicated all this to the visitors during the event, thereby increasing awareness.

Sustainability was also expected in connection with outdoor catering, so in order to reduce waste, the use of single-use plastic items (straws, PET bottles, cutlery, glasses, plates, and serving utensils) was prohibited, indeed the leftover food of the Festival visitors was absorbed by Composity’s innovation, a composting robot, and turned into humus.

We also tried to display sustainability in the evaluation. Our first idea was to give an extra point to those event organizers who already have experience in food-saving events, at the same time, all of this needed to be combined with experience as a festival organizer – as this is a completely special type of event, this remained the primary aspect of the evaluation.

The market was surprised by the green requirements, and many doubted its feasibility, but fortunately, the winner of the procedure refuted this, and we managed to achieve greater attendance and media coverage than ever before.