Why do some partnerships form successfully while others fail? Much has been written about the conditions for successful partnership formation, however the qualities of the policy issue itself have rarely been central to this debate. Drawing on qualitative research about a food policymaking initiative in Baltimore, Maryland, this article explores the ‘convening power’ of food as a policy topic, and the relationship between civic capital and the politics of urban growth in horizontal partnerships. Drawing from Nelles’ framework for inter-municipal cooperation, and Logan and Molotch’s urban growth machine model, the article presents a set of conditions for successful partnership formation that elaborates on the underlying urban growth consensus that drives civic capital in the city. Baltimore’s food policy efforts suggest that a policy issue may show greater ‘partnerability’ when an initiative can generate both exchange and use value, thereby appealing widely to the local growth coalition and other stakeholders.