Carleton University
OP-7: Low Impact Dining

Aramark has a sophisticated product tracking system which allows us to report virtually every purchase made by our campus team over a given period of time. Whenever we require information on procurement patterns reports can be generated detailing purchase volumes and total spend for any particular item, anywhere in the country.

We have a vast vegan dining program across our operation. In the main dining hall, there is a vegan station which runs along the three week menu cycle of the rest of the dining hall offering a large variety of vegan options including entrées, salads and sides. The vegan station is broken down into a hot station and a cold station. We take care to provide complete protein sources by offering a variety of different plant based proteins, while incorporating ingredients such as pulses/legumes, cereals & pseudocereals, nuts, seeds, soy / tofu, etc. to provide vegan and vegetarian diners with a balanced diet that is rich in plant based protein. We also ensure that there is at least one dish with legumes and beans available and one dish with tofu available at every meal period. At the retail locations, we offer vegan options at our stations including our franchise and in house brands. We continue to emphasize the benefits of plant based eating through our Healthy for Life marketing, communication, and educational platform through publishing materials such as a vegan eating brochure in our Healthy for Life information board, seasonal newsletters such as our fall 2014 live it good newsletter boasting the benefits of pulses in partnership with Pulse Canada, online news stories about vegan and vegetarian eating on liveitgood.ca, and through our social media channels. We also incorporate vegan and/or vegetarian entrees into our Go Local Wednesdays program so some weeks the featured dish is vegan friendly. We are currently working on a detailed dietary restrictions program which will have branded logos indicating whether every single menu item is vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, and/or Halal. This will provide even more signage at point of sale to showcase our options for people that follow these diets

We purchase our shell eggs locally from Macartney Farms in order to not only support local producers in the Ottawa area, but also reduce emissions produced from transporting eggs across long distances. In addition, we purchase MSC certified wild-caught seafood and BAP certified farmed seafood through our contracted partner frozen fish supplier Lapointe Fish and Seafood LTD. Purchasing sustainably sourced seafood helps to reduce ecologically harmful practices such overfishing and promotes responsible aquaculture.