Food systems are multisectoral and globalised, which makes it difficult to enact large-scale change in food because a large amount of stakeholders are affected. At the same time, the globalisation of food makes its production less sustainable and makes regions more dependent on each other. Metro Vancouver tries to address this by creating an encompassing strategy that brings together producers, policymakers, retailers and distributors. Their strategy tries to allow for more regional production of food by ensuring cooperation and dialogue between municipal politics, farmers, and food processing and retail industry actors.

The strategy is focused on actions at the regional level which will lead to a more localized, sustainable, resilient and healthy food system while continuing to be embedded in the larger food system at the national and global scales. Given the multi-sectoral nature of food systems, a process was developed to involve a wide range of stakeholders: farmers, food processors, distributors and retailers, public health authorities, municipalities, provincial and federal government and their agencies as well as NGOs, community groups and academia. The unique platform provided by Metro Vancouver helped to mobilize this approach, which would have otherwise been beyond the scope and capacity of some smaller municipal members to achieve.