The Scoop - Fall 2026: Policy Updates

PFPC met with both the Mayor's Office and the County Executive's Office to advance food systems priorities. Here you will learn more about our introductory meeting with the new Mayoral Administration, our September conversation on composting and the City's plans to put existing efforts into action, and our first quarterly meeting with the County Executive's Office on coordinating food systems work and expanding food justice funding.

Meetings with the Mayor’s Office

July Meeting: Our first meeting with the new Mayoral Administration was all about introductions. We shared an overview of PFPC, the Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan (GPFAP), and the food systems work already underway across the region, including community gardening and urban agriculture efforts led by partners like ACCD, Grow Pittsburgh, and PRC. Councilmember Deb Gross also joined us for these early conversations. We stressed the need for better coordination between the City, County, and community partners and advocated for moving forward with the Food Systems Coordinator position. The Administration later shared that vacant positions are on hold until after the fall budget process, with their immediate focus on maintaining existing staff and programming.

September Meeting: In September, we dug into composting, how the work has evolved, what's already happening, and where we can go next. We covered PA DEP technical assistance, SoilMill, farmers market food-waste drop-offs, compost distribution to growers, and the many local organizations and businesses already leading the way. Our primary ask centered on the City's recent RFP to develop an actionable municipal food-waste composting plan, and on making sure its recommendations turn into action. Zach Delaney from DPW joined us to share details on the City's $1.6 million SWIFR grant and plans to expand yard-waste collection, with broader service hoped for by 2028.

Our key message has been Pittsburgh is not starting from scratch. It's time to put existing plans into action. Next steps we discussed include:

• Strengthening public-private partnerships

• Developing processing infrastructure

• Updating municipal and zoning codes

• Creating compost procurement policies or legislation to spur investment in local composting infrastructure and markets

• Exploring a clean-soil bank and other ways to build on existing City resources

Upcoming December Meeting: For December, we hope to learn more about the Mayoral Administration’s food systems priorities for the current term. This will help us identify where the Administration’s priorities overlap with the GPFAP and work already happening among PFPC partners, and where there are opportunities to better coordinate around shared goals. We hope to share those priorities in our newsletter following the December meeting.

County Executive Meeting

We held our first meeting with the County Executive's Office in August and plan to meet quarterly, similar to our meetings with the City. We discussed updating the GPFAP with more direct involvement from County agencies and what implementation could look like at the County level. A big focus was better connecting food systems work already happening across County departments, including DHS, Sustainability, Allegheny County Economic Development, and the Health Department. We also explored how the County could play a larger role in funding food justice work, including investment that complements Pittsburgh's existing Food Justice Fund.