Case Western Reserve University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Industry-leading milestones of Bon Appetit's company: · Supporting local agriculture companywide, since 1999 · Striving to serve only seafood that meets Seafood Watch sustainability guidelines, since 2002 · Reducing antibiotic use in farm animals, since 2003 · Switching to rBGH-free milk, since 2003 · Sourcing eggs from cage-free hens, since 2005 (precracked/liquid eggs since 2016) · Tackling food’s role in climate change, since 2007 · Upholding farmworkers’ rights, since 2009 · Switching to humanely raised ground beef, since 2012 · Switching to pork raised without gestation crates, since 2016 Farm to Fork: Bon Appetit chefs strive to source at least 20% of their ingredients from small, owner-operated farms, ranches, and artisan producers within 150 miles of their kitchens. Seafood Standards: For all seafood purchases, wild and farmed, Bon Appetit adheres to the sustainability guidelines for commercial buyers as outlined by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch® program. Bon Appetit is also committed to purchasing 91.5% of tuna from suppliers that do not use FADs. Sourcing more humanely raised animal products: · Quietly putting meat in the back seat as well as offering vegetarian/vegan options every day · Milk and yogurt comes from cows not treated with rBGH · Eggs are certified cage-free (both shell and pre-cracked/liquid) · Chicken and turkey are raised without routine antibiotics · Ground beef comes from animals fed a vegetarian diet, never given antibiotics or artificial hormones, and from a third-party verified humane source · Contracted pork is never given antibiotics or growth promoters · Pork also comes from sows that spend their pregnancies in group housing, without being confined unnecessarily to gestation crates Started the Low Carbon Diet program in 2007, which focused on: PRIORITIZING PLANT-BASED PROTEINS · Serving reasonable, clearly defined portions of animal proteins based on U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommendations · Skewing the menu mix away from beef and cheese · Emphasizing plant-based proteins · Tracking the ounces of various proteins they serve per guest per meal period, to make sure they stay on target PREVENTING AND REDUCING FOOD WASTE · Requiring Bon Appetit teams to actively engage in preventing waste at the source, by tracking their participation in our Imperfectly Delicious Produce program · Continuing to prevent waste in their kitchens and recording their efforts using a two-month-long in-house program or a third-party waste-tracking program such as Lean Path · Donating leftovers to local hunger relief organizations on a regular, not occasional basis. (Bon Appetit has vowed that by 2018, 80% of our accounts will be Food Recovery Certified.) · Fribley cafe specifically has partnered with the Food Recovery Network this semester to use their leftover food to feed hungry members of the Cleveland community. TRIMMING TRANSPORTATION · No air-freighted seafood · Restricting purchases of vegetables, meat, non-tropical fruit, and bottled water to North America · Encouraging purchases of seasonal and regional fruits and vegetables · Training chefs and managers how to prioritize tropical fruit that is typically boated or trucked versus air-freighted when needed DECREASING DEFORESTATION · Purchasing meat from North American farms and ranches (fed with U.S.-grown crops) · Opting for paper products that are FSC Certified and/or made from recycled content · Setting measurable goals for purchasing coffee from Certified Organic, shade-grown, Rainforest Alliance or Bird Friendly certified (by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center) farms

The University Farm cultivates 3-acres of kitchen food production which is purchased by Bon Appetit and other local restaurants and the campus community. Bon Appetit regularly serves these products including for example, summer salad greens, peppers, tomatoes, herbs and mushrooms.

Starting in 2012, and through last summer, the university farm offered a CSA to the campus community and the public. The CSA offered five four-week sessions with a pick up available either on campus or at the Farm. This CSA boasts of offering oyster mushrooms in addition to the other fresh, local, seasonal produce, and the option to only sign up for as many of the four week sessions participants choose.

Vegan and vegetarian options are made available at every meal, as required by Bon Appetit company policy.

Bon Appetit does not have continually scheduled “Meatless Mondays” yet, but on an everyday basis, Bon Appétit has committed to continuing to shift the proteins they serve from animal- to plant-based sources. They have set specific ounces-per-guest-per-meal targets and launched detailed reporting on this and other metrics, via the new dashboard, for every company location to ensure accountability. Chefs are receiving training on moving their menus away from beef and cheese, offering specifically defined reasonable portions of any animal protein (less than or equal to those of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines), and techniques to emphasize plant-based proteins.

Eat local challenge: Each September, Bon Appetit challenges chefs to hold an event with a meal made completely from local ingredients (defined as coming from within a 150-mile radius of the café). If they wanted to serve a turkey sandwich, for example, then not just the turkey, but also the yeast and wheat for the bread, the milk for the cheese, the eggs for the mayo, et cetera all had to be locally grown. The only exception allowed is salt. Low Carbon Diet Day: Although low carbon changes are being incorporated into our purchasing and menus year-round, Bon Appetit celebrates Low Carbon Diet Day around Earth Day each year, which involves putting up educating materials about how the food we eat affects the earth. There is a different theme every year. For example, in 2013 they commissioned a review of more than four dozen scientific papers projecting how important crops such as corn, wheat, rice, fruit, dairy, and coffee will fare in a changing climate — and what pressures they are already under from climate change. In addition to distilling the research into eye-catching educational signage and materials, they added a performance element to bring it to life. Bon Appétit chefs around the country used a cooking demonstration to discuss these global agriculture trends as well as to encourage guests to choose planet-friendlier foods. In February 2017 Bon Appetit hosted a local cereal tasting table in both Leutner and Fribley, to showcase a local cereal maker and bring awareness that they will be featuring the product in our dining halls.

Bon Appetit prioritizes a education campaign throughout the year in the campus dining halls and restaurants that educates consumers on the benefits of eating local, promotes consumers choosing locally sourced meal options and occasionally throughout the year educates on the benefits on eating vegetarian and vegan for lowering impact.

Bon Appetit employs four fellows who travel to campuses to meet with students and staff to increase awareness and education regarding sustainable food systems and other sustainability issues related to the dining contract. The fellow assigned to CWRU just spent a week at our campus and met with student groups to help them collaborate both with Bon Appetit and to offer advice on amplifying their messages and goals. The Office for Sustainability also employs two ambassadors who are focused on sustainable food and water on campus. They collaborate with other student organizations and departments to advance the goals of sustainable food and raise awareness. One of their projects this semester is to create a sustainable eating guide for the campus use, as well as to plan programs and outreach during our campus's food week, April 10-14th, the highlight of which will be a keynote by a local sustainable food producer and advocate.

Bon Appetit Management Company provides a wellness indicator for all foods, that indicate at a glance whether something is on the healthier end of the spectrum or the not-so-healthy end by using a colored up or down arrow, along with a per-serving calorie count. Since 2013, Bon Appetit has been working through a sodium reduction campaign to enable their chefs to create healthy and delicious food with less salt. Starting in 2016, Bon Appetit has worked through their fellows on a healthy kids in the kitchen program that partners with campus cafes to teach local children, oftentimes children of staff or faculty, to prepare healthful food. Bon Appetit has also committed to encouraging healthy food choices and appropriate serving sizes as a matter of course in their dining facilities, and making it easy for those with food restrictions (i.e. vegan, vegetarian, gluten free) to find compliant foods. They are committed to emphasizing the use of fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains and use a "stealth" model to increase nutrition through healthy cooking techniques in everyday food production.

Our on-site food provider, Bon Appetit, has kitchen and sustainability standards in place that include preparing food in small batches and cooking from scratch, to include stocks from scraps, that reduce waste. Pre-consumer food waste from dining halls are composted at our University farm. Bon Appetit is piloting LeanPath software in our University's kitchens this year.

Bon Appetit has eliminated trays in all student dining halls; only retail food areas areas have trays available for use. Our local chapter of Food Recovery Network has partnered with Bon Appetit and its outlets, as well as other local businesses, to capture leftover food for donation. They collect from locations five days a week, and pick-up a bulk donation stored by Bon Appetit on Saturday. The food is taken to one of two hunger centers, and provided to patrons in the form of items to eat on site, to take home, and integrated into a hot meal.

Bon Appetit regularly donates surplus food before closing cafeterias for breaks - unprocessed food, typically surplus produce, is donated to different local food pantry type non-profit organizations. Food Recovery Network, a student organization, works with Bon Appetit to donate surplus prepared foods from two kitchens and various retail outlets bon on and off-campus to a different local food pantry.

Bon Appetit is working with a student group to pilot a program to produce used cooking oil to biofuel that would be used on campus. They are in the beginning stages of production.

Bon Appetit composts the majority of its pre-consumer kitchen waste; this waste is composted at the CWRU Farms for use in gardens that grow produce which is then used by dining services. The Tinkham Veale University Center has a pulper installed to aid in composting pre-consumer kitchen scraps.

The "Green Your Event" checklist directs event planners on how to prepare for a zero-waste event, to include post-consumer composting. Event composting is sometimes done for events, such as the annual Farm Harvest Festival at the University Farm. Our Weatherhead School of Management graduation celebration was a zero waste event that composted all the lunch scraps at a local commercial compost facility.

The two main student dining halls are "dine in" and provide only reusable dinnerware for all meals. The Tinkham Veale University Center food court also offers the option of using reusable plates for dine-in meals.

In an effort to reduce food waste, "to-go" containers are not offered at dining facilities.

Bon Appetit offers resuable mug discounts in many of its retail locations: Starbucks NRV (1.00 refill coffee), Tomlinson Marketplace (.99 refill coffee, fountain beverage and iced tea), BRB Cafe (.99 coffee), KSL Cafe (.99 coffee) and WRB Cafe (.99 coffee).

The Student Sustainability Council and Bon Appetit worked together in 2015/16 to remove plastic bags from two grab and go food locations on campus. They piloted moving the bags the previous spring to reduce automatic bag usage, and surveyed students to encourage putting food into reusable bags or backpacks. In the fall, they handed out reusable, packable bags with carabiner clips that were purchased by Bon Appetit with sponsorship from the Office for Sustainability. Plastic bags were then phased out and are no longer offered. Over 500 bags were being used per day, 5 days a week, prior to the phase-out.