Fresh Food Dynamic Purchasing System – Driving Savings and Offering Exciting New Products To Trusts

In this article, we look at how our innovative Fresh Food Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) is driving great savings to trusts, ensuring quality products are being delivered to patients, staff and visitors, with a focus on more sustainable options, such as plant-based meat alternatives.  

The Fresh Food DPS is bringing local and regional suppliers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), on board, offering trusts some fantastic meat alternatives to reduce their carbon footprints and support their Green plans. Suppliers can join this at any time throughout the period running until February 2029, as the DPS is an open-market solution, meaning they can join at any time. These local suppliers are ensuring trusts will have choices to achieve their individual and varied product needs across the country.

The Fresh Food DPS covers everything from milk, dairy, fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry and plant-based meat alternatives. The purpose of this agreement is to develop non-framework spend, and the reopening of competition is being used to generate extensive savings for the trusts.

Here we focus on the Fresh Food DPS for the month of April.

There are currently a hundred and seventeen suppliers that have been approved onto the DPS Agreement, but this number grows every week. The DPS allows for greater choice and new business, with a real focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), meaning local and regional suppliers, a key focus for NHS England as part of their Net Zero pledge, and tying in with the trusts Green Plans. Out of this one hundred and seventeen the majority are SMEs, proving NHS Supply Chain: Food’s Fresh Food DPS is a real success story. So far the framework has achieved savings of £482,536 in the last 12 months. In terms of activity, a hundred and thirty two contracts have been awarded since the launch of the Fresh Food DPS by trusts, with four new suppliers. NHS Supply Chain: Food have awarded eighty nine local suppliers business with in this.

Anna Gibson, Category Buyer for Fresh Food, NHS Supply Chain: Food

There has been a real product focus on the Fresh Food DPS for innovations and new product ranges, including plant-based foods, an allergen free range of meat substitutes and hybrid meat and lentil/bean composite meat products, all helping trusts with reducing their carbon footprint. The meat alternatives category is a new product range for the Fresh Food DPS agreement, as there is now such a trend for suppliers offering lower carbon substitutes, as alternatives to the 100% meat and poultry products that existed beforehand. Suppliers are offering a range of products now that offer both the nutritional value of meat, but with lower carbon and higher fibre and vegetable content. Most alternatives are in the format of traditional meat products so can be easily translated to current menus in hospitals, and as direct alternatives such as sausages, burgers and mince.

See our Useful Links section for more information about our Fresh Food DPS or email your local Food Account Manager confirming your trust name, location and job title with your full contact details.