Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 77.56
Liaison John Pumilio
Submission Date Oct. 11, 2022

STARS v2.2

Colgate University
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.59 / 6.00 John Pumilio
Director of Sustainability
Sustainability Office
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Percentage of total annual food and beverage expenditures on products that are sustainably or ethically produced:
4.95

Percentage of total annual food and beverage expenditures on plant-based foods:
43

An inventory of food and beverage purchases that qualify as sustainably/ethically produced:
A brief description of the methodology used to conduct the inventory, including the timeframe and how representative samples accounted for seasonal variation (if applicable):
Chartwells provided Colgate's Office of Sustainability a detailed product-by-product food spend for fiscal year 2021. For this data, Office of Sustainability staff were able to go through the document and separate out the total food spend for both plant-based foods and also for sustainably/ethically sourced foods.

Compiling the food spend for plant-based foods was straightforward. Identifying and categorizing sustainably/ethically sourced foods was more complicated. Chartwells provided the Office of Sustainability a data sheet with the products, the quantity bought, and total cost for products they identified as sustainably sourced. However, we did not include some of this data because the Office of Sustainability could not verify the certification or the standard that was used.

Our submission for this credit erred on the side of caution and whenever we were in doubt, we omitted the product from our totals. In the future, we hope to work with Chartwells and Compass Group to better identify, track, and ideally, source more of Colgate's food from sustainably/ethically produced foods.

If reporting Real/Good Food Calculator results, provide:

Website URL where the institution’s validated Real/Good Food Calculator results are publicly posted:
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Which of the following food service providers are present on campus and included in the inventory/assessment?:
Present? Included?
Dining operations and catering services operated by the institution Yes Yes
Dining operations and catering services operated by a contractor Yes Yes
Student-run food/catering services Yes No
Franchises (e.g., regional or global brands) No No
Convenience stores Yes Yes
Vending services Yes No
Concessions Yes Yes

Total annual dining services budget for food and beverage products:
$1 million - $4.9 million

Optional Fields

A brief description of the institution’s sustainable food and beverage purchasing program:
For several years, Colgate University tracked the amount of local and/or sustainable foods it purchased on campus. We defined local as food coming from within a 250-mile radius (Tier 1) and additionally from food sourced within our county or one of the counties that bordered our county. We also tracked food that had a third-party certification using AASHE STARS list of endorsed certifications. While we are no longer tracking food spend in this way, we were purchasing over 28 percent of our food from local and/or sustainably-sourced producers as of 2019.

Website URL where information about the food and beverage purchasing program is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.