Boston University
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

BU Dining Services prioritizes the purchase of food grown, caught, and raised locally, thereby supporting a healthy, equitable, self-sustaining food system in New England. Additionally, we prioritize purchasing foods grown with agricultural practices that are ecologically sound, socially responsible, and economically viable. Our production team meets weekly to discuss what's local and how to incorporate foods into our menus at our three dining halls. Current goals include working to ensure that as much local, seasonal produce is purchased, given economic feasibility. That includes taking advantage of all local, seasonal produce as well as frozen processed fruits and vegetables to lengthen the season, ensuring access to local products for our operations year round. A vast majority of all dairy, including milk, yogurt, butter, and cheeses are bought locally year-round. All eggs are cage-free, where ever feasible, and all the coffee served in residential dining rooms is organic and fair trade. We also purchase grass-fed, Maine-raised ground beef and hot dogs, as well as local whole chickens and turkey. We look for MSC Certified seafood, and work with a local fishing company, Red’s Best, to purchase fish from sustainable populations using sustainable technology, and provide full traceability.

Spending reports were obtained from vendors that service BU Dining Services. Reports include all purchases for the time period July 1 2017 through June 30 2018. The BU Dining Services Sustainability Director then analyzed the reports using the AASHE and Real Food Challenge Criteria to determine whether items could be counted as third-party certified and/or local and community based.

American Humane Certified (poultry and pigs) – verify the humane treatment of animals American Humane Certified Cage Free eggs (laying hens) – verifies hens are provided uncrowded cages that exceed the industry norm Direct Trade coffee from local roaster – Fazenda Coffee uses as direct-trade sourcing model for their coffee. https://www.fazendacoffee.com/pages/the-roastery Best Aquaculture Practices certified - The Best Aquaculture Practices is the only third-party aquaculture certification program to be compliant with the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) and Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI). The Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) coordinates the development of the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) certification standards for seafood processing plants, farms, hatcheries and feed mills. The standards are developed and continually updated through production method-specific technical committees and under the guidance of a Standards Coordinator as well as a 12-member Standards Oversight Committee (SOC) comprised of members with broad stakeholder representation — one-third conservation, one-third academia and one-third industry. After review by the SOC, standards are modified, if necessary, and published for 60 days of public comment. The committee’s consideration of comments leads to a final draft that must be approved by the SOC and GAA Board of Directors before implementation. Local & community based products that exceed the annual revenue cap (e.g. Cabot - co-op, within 250 miles, 100% of ingredients are local). Kosher certified animal products

BU has seven Certified Green Restaurants on campus. Three of which are four star restaurants and four of which are three star restaurants. The George Sherman Union is the Greenest Food Court in the Nation, according to the Green Restaurant Association. Alcohol from food service and catering is not included due to gaps in data. We plan to include this data in the next report iteration and will begin tracking it moving forward.