CHICAGO, April 2, 2026 — An initiative to promote healthcare facilities’ purchase of fresh foods directly from local farms is expanding into Florida after a successful pilot run in Kentucky, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday.
The effort will make it easier for hospital foodservices to buy fruits and vegetables for their patient feeding operations from local growers, HHS asserted. But it aired few details about how the procurement process will be altered, including the leeway facilities will be afforded if they are currently supplied by a group purchasing organization, as is common in healthcare, or are bound by purchasing contracts.
The initiative does extend to helping a participating hospital retrain its staff to use more fresh supplies.
Participation is voluntary, HHS stressed.
In exchange for the benefits of the initiative, participating hospitals pledge to spend at least 5% of their food budgets with local farms.
At the press event announcing Florida’s participation in the program, Trump Administration officials aired a long-term goal of helping healthcare facilities customize their menus and purchasing practices to address specific ailments of the patients they serve.
“Food should not be an afterthought in health care,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of HHS’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “By connecting hospitals directly with local farmers, we’re not just improving meals; we’re rebuilding a care model that treats nutrition as essential medicine,
Nicklaus Children’s Hospital has agreed to be the first facility in Florida to give the new program a try.
The initiative is patterned after a program that was adopted in Kentucky in May 2024 as a joint effort of the Kentucky Hospital Association and the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. Healthcare facilities there have since stepped up their purchases of local produce and meat, according to state and federal sources.
They note that the effort there extends to the procurement of direct-from-the-farm supplies for hospitals’ employee-feeding operations as well as their patient-focused foodservices.
About half the state’s hospitals are reportedly participating.
The disclosure of Florida’s plan to follow Kentucky’s lead coincided HHS’s announcement that it intends to ensure hospitals receiving Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements abide by the 2025 Dietary Recommendations for Americans (DRAs).
The controversial guidelines call for making red meat a larger part of diets; drastically reducing or eliminating consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPF); and avoiding added sugars.
The DRAs are the foundation of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, a movement spearheaded by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It has been adopted as the health policy of the Trump Administration.