Brock University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Brock dining services has a continuing partnership with Rosewood Winery & Meadery to showcase locally made Honey within their catering services and in student dining halls. Beekeeping is very important not only to Niagara’s local environment, but to the Roman family – Rosewood’s founders. The Roman family has 90 years – 3 generations worth – of consecutive beekeeping experience. Today, they keep hundreds of beehives across the Niagara Escarpment through natural and sustainable bee keeping practices. Featuring this locally sourced product is one way Brock supports the local agricultural community within the Niagara Region.

https://rosewoodwine.com/pages/bees
https://www.instagram.com/p/CrRIrTqutkh/?img_index=1

Dining Services at Brock University actively supports student-driven initiatives that help the local community, as they support the Brock University Students’ Union (BUSU) and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA). Both BUSU and GSA focus on promoting academic, professional and social student development, and enable opportunities for the interaction between students and the internal/external community.

In addition, Brock’s Dining Services purchases from numerous local farms and producers through what is called the Farm to Fork program. All farms/producers are located within 200 kilometers of Brock Campus without crossing any boarders. This program includes the following locations:
• Koornneef Produce (Beamsville, Ontario)
• Pfenning’s Organic Farm (New Hamburg, Ontario)
• Magalas Produce (Waterford, Ontario)
• S. Fett Farms (La Salette, Ontario)
• Nightingale Farms (La Salette, Ontario)
• De Dreu Farms (Mount Elgin, Ontario)
• Spearit Farms (Langton, Ontario)
• Procyk Farms (Wilsonville, Ontario)

Links to Farm's websites:
https://www.koornneefproduce.com/
https://pfenningsfarms.ca/
https://www.canadianpoultrymag.com/barn-spotlight-magalas-produce-ltd/
https://nightingalefarms.com/
https://dedreufarms.ca/
https://www.norfolktourism.ca/norfolk-farms/meet-our-farmers/spearit-farms/
http://veggiefamilypac.com/

Operating out of Brocks two major dining halls (DeCew & Lowenberger), the Fresh Food Company has implemented the Cool-Food initiative. This is a program which serves and promotes more plant-rich foods, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions generated by food production. Brocks Cool-Food meals are identified by the coolfood company, which is a platform that utilizes the World Resource Institute (WRI) to measure the carbon footprint of various recipes. Food items that meet a specific criteria can be deemed low climate impact. This designation can be achieved if the Carbon footprint of a dish meets an established per-meal greenhouse gas emissions threshold and nutritional standard. The per meal threshold is based upon the maximum recommended daily carbon footprint for a person’s diet, which is 38% smaller than the current average. The result is what is called a “Cool-Food Meal” which is advertised to students as a low impact, climate friendly alternative via the Cool Food Meal icon. This program is currently working to be expanded campus wide so that all members of the Brock community can take part in enjoying low impact meals.

https://coolfood.org/

Brock University offers a wide variety of Dining Services options on campus, which range from healthy grab and go choices. The Dining Services locations have vegetarian and vegan options available for the students, staff/faculty. Many restaurants within the Union Station and Market cafeteria have various options for vegans and vegetarians – Burrito Boys has both vegetable tofu and sweet potato and other meat alternatives for their burritos and quesadillas. Harvey’s offers a veggie burger and Booster Juice also has the option for vegetarian and vegan smoothies that use soy milk instead of dairy. Within Brocks Primary dining halls, the Fresh Food company has a wide range of Vegan options that rotate frequently for students.

In conjunction with the Cool Foods initiative, items/meals that have been deemed as low impact by the World Resources Institute (WRI) have the Cool Food Meal icon. Students can look for this icon within the two main dining halls at Brock (DeCew & Lowenberger). In addition, there is signage communicating that a “Cool-Food” meal refers to Low climate impact. This is paired with a QR code to the coolfood website for more information.

Brock Dining services also utilize a Plant Forward (PF) icon included with their dietary labelling program. This program extends to all areas on campus run by Brock Dining services, which includes the Market eatery. This PF icon identifies lesser impact food choices by identifying foods that contain 60 grams or less of animal-based protein per serving. This icon is also used for menu items that may or may not be vegetarian but meet the plant forward criteria.

https://brocku.ca/dining-services/dietary-labelling-program/

Brock University conducts an annual waste audit that includes organic waste. The waste audit provides estimates of the annual amount of solid non-hazardous waste materials disposed and diverted. This audit provides an opportunity to track and improve food management practices and helps support Dining Services towards becoming zero-waste.

Brock University is completely trayless across campus. When the University transitioned to this new system in 2020 all trays were donated to long term care facilities and archaeological/earth science departments.

In Brocks Primary dining halls (Decew and Lowenberger) students participate in the “all you care to enjoy” meal plans which is designed for students to only taking the amount of food they will consume and not discard. This is aimed at reducing post-consumer food waste throughout the Brock community. These Dining halls offer modified, smaller portion sizes because their is a wide range of food items to choose from and students can always go get more.

Brock University donates frozen foods, dry goods, and canned goods when they have the opportunity. This is mainly done through on-campus food drives. Notably in 2022, Brock participated in the ‘Help Us Fill a Truck’ and ‘Help Us Feed 100 Families’ food drives, led by the partnership of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) and Community Care of St. Catharines. Members of the Brock community could either make a monetary donation or non-perishable food donation via stations at the James A. Gibson Library, Brock Campus Store, Brock Central @ the Registrar’s Office, Shipping and Receiving, the welcome desks in the Walker Sports Complex, and the Cairns Bioscience Research Complex.

Brock dining services sells all its used cooking oil to a company named Darling Ingredients, which makes grease and oil disposal more convenient for companies. This oil is then recycled through the company and turned into clean-burning renewable fuels.

https://www.darlingii.ca/services

Brock dining services has a composting program run through Davidson environmental. In doing so both Fresh Food companies located in the DeCew and Lowenberger residences compost all food scraps and organic material from the back of house operations.

https://www.davidsonenvironmental.ca/

Dining Services at Brock University aims to reduce the amount of packaging and plastics used on campus by offering environment-friendly alternatives. Dining Services offers steel utensils, reusable plates and drinkware in the cafeterias to reduce the need for single-use plastics and additional waste.

All coffee serving locations on campus that are operated by Brock University offer a discount to those who bring their own reusable cup. The Brock University Students’ Union runs General Brock and at this store customers bring a reusable cup of any size. In addition, other locations on campus such as the Starbucks in the Market eatery have restarted offering discounts for those who bring reusable cup.

NAMLN:
The Niagara agricultural Municipal Learning Network (NAMLN) was a program that was undertaken by Brock University’s Niagara Community Observatory (NCO). Running from June 2022-January 2023 the primary objective of the NAMLN was to engage municipal elected officials and staff in a series of activities to share information, knowledge, and resources regarding regional agricultural issues and opportunities. The end goal of the program was to enhance the capacity within municipalities to support and promote Niagara’s agriculture sector. Ultimately participation in this program provided members with critical resources and information to make evidence-based decisions to support and promot a sustainable agriculture sector in Niagara.

https://brocku.ca/niagara-community-observatory/NAMLN/

Food First Program:
Offered through a partnership between the Brock University Student Union and Graduate Student association this program provides students in need with a local grocery store gift card. This programs also connects students who may be struggling with food insecurity to community resources and other programing where they can find assistance. In addition, this program offers free on campus breakfast bags on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.

Brock dining services also donates money to this program, most recently through the swipe it forward initiative. From February 6-10 2023, the Brock Community could make $1, $2, or $5 donations at the Market eatery, hungry badger and Both Decew & Lowenberger Fresh food Company locations (Main on campus dining halls).

https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2022/02/food-first-program-offering-free-breakfast-for-students-beginning-tuesday/

https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2023/02/swipe-it-forward-next-week-in-support-of-food-first/

Food Drives at Brock:

https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2022/06/on-campus-food-drive-aims-to-help-families-in-need/

https://gobadgers.ca/news/2021/11/17/general-news-brock-badgers-collecting-food-donations-for-community-care.aspx