Institutional food service channels
Last updated on February 13, 2025
The institutional food service channel is for selling food to public institutions and facilities such as hospitals, residential care, post-secondary institutions, and K-12 schools.
On this page
- Connect to the market
- Price and costing model
- Volume and quality
- Marketing
- Labelling and packaging
- Certifications
- Resources
Key readiness requirements
There are different ways you can connect to the institutional food service market, including:
- Through a broadline food distributor (most common route)
- Health care institutions often work with group purchasing organizations, who have preferred distributors
- Through a regional food distributor or broker
- Directly to institutions’ food service, retail, or catering departments
- This is less common for larger institutions like health care that often prefer to work through distributors for efficiency, though it may be an option for selling to schools.
It is important to know what your costs are and how you will price your product. Institutions are price sensitive buyers but also offer stable markets through regular ordering. Be prepared to sell to institutions at wholesale prices, accepting lower unit margins but gaining cost efficiencies through higher order volumes.
Consistency is very important to institutional buyers. To be ready to do business with institutions, make sure you will be able to provide consistent volumes with consistent quality through reliable distribution.
Volume
- Institutions often work with distributors. Distributors often require minimum sales volumes to list a new product and maintain that listing. Delivery guarantee agreements with late and short fees are also common
Quality
- Institutions who are feeding patients, residents, students, and workers require food products that allow them to meet public nutrition guidelines.
- Institutional buyers look for products that offer consistency that can meet nutrition, texture, and food safety quality standards
- Health care requires allergen-free products made in allergen-free facilities
Develop a marketing strategy.
- A customer base needs to be established before entering this market
- Distributors may support you to market your product
Know the requirements to label and package your product.
Traceability standards
- Labelling and packaging must meet traceability standards, including:
- A traceability system to track and document the production, processing and distribution of your product
- Universal Product Code (UPC) using the Global Systems of Standards (GS1)
- Global Trade Item Number (GTIN)
Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) standards
- Labelling must meet CFIA standards. Generally this means:
- Nutritional chart
- Allergens
- Ingredients
- A best before date
- Visit CFIA’s food labelling tool to understand more on product specific requirements
Portion size requirements
Institutions often require specific portion sizes that are different from commercial food services and retail. Be prepared to adapt portion and/or packaging sizes to work for institutions’ operations.
Certifications and audits
Make sure you have the correct required certifications ready, which may include:
- Food Safety Certified Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)
- Good agricultural practices (primary agriculture only)
- Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) - Meat products and food animals
- A Hold Harmless Agreement
- This is a type of insurance that prevents businesses from being held legally responsible for losses or damages for which they might otherwise be considered liable
- Insurance with a minimum of $2M coverage for:
- Occurrence
- Products and completed operations
- General aggregate
- Umbrella liability