Overall Rating Platinum - expired
Overall Score 88.14
Liaison Tonie Miyamoto
Submission Date Dec. 6, 2019
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Colorado State University
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.42 / 6.00 Mary Liang
Assistant Director of Sustainability
Housing and Dining Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on products that are third party verified under one or more recognized food and beverage sustainability standards or Local & Community-Based:
5.50

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (expenditures on conventional animal products)? (If data is not available, respond “No”):
Yes

Percentage of total dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional animal products (meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, and dairy products that do NOT qualify in either the Third Party Verified or Local & Community-Based category):
28

A brief description of the sustainable food and beverage purchasing program, including how the sustainability impacts of products in specific categories are addressed (e.g. meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, dairy, produce, tea/coffee):

Housing & Dining Services works with our food distributor to purchase local and organic foods when possible, always working to balance cost for students with quality products. Our produce specifications require vendors to bid and supply local and organic produce when available and reasonably priced.


An inventory of the institution’s sustainable food and beverage purchases that includes for each product: the description/type; label, brand or producer; and the category in which it is being counted and/or a description of its sustainability attribute(s):
A brief description of the methodology used to conduct the inventory, including the timeframe and how representative samples accounted for seasonal variation (if applicable):

We chose two sample months (October 2018 and April 2019) that accounted for seasonal variation. Calculations were made after manually combing through the invoices, and cross referencing vendor lists of organic or local products. Animal products were self-identified. Products with some animal product, but not all, were excluded (ex. mac and cheese, cheesy tortilla chips, etc.)


Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
---

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
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Which of the following food service providers are present on campus and included in the total food and beverage expenditure figures?:
Present? Included?
Dining operations and catering services operated by the institution Yes Yes
Dining operations and catering services operated by a contractor No No
Student-run food/catering services Yes Yes
Franchises (e.g. national or global brands) No No
Convenience stores Yes No
Vending services Yes No
Concessions Yes No

A brief description of purchased food and beverage products that have other sustainability attributes not recognized above :

CSU purchased $102,531 in food and beverage products that do not meet the above standards, but have sustainability attributes. The sustainability attributes these purchases met were from companies that were not publicly traded but locally owned (Mom and Pop stores) that either could not afford 3rd party verification, could not be grown locally, or could not determine the % by weight of locally grown and raised ingredients in their product. An example of this would be the Old Town Spice Shop, and Bean Cycle in downtown Fort Collins. These companies are locally owned but spices, and coffee beans are not grown locally. Additionally, New Belgium Brewery, although a large brewery, is a B-certified corporation and 100% employee-owned.


Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
4

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

This data was collected based on purchasing inventories provided by Housing and Dining Services and the Lory Student Center for the months of October 2018 and April 2019. For each month, products that were designated as organic or local & community based (as determined by AASHE criteria). Products were counted as organic or otherwise third party verified if they explicitly mentioned it on the label or if the vendor identified that product as organic or otherwise 3rd party verified. Products were counted local & community based if vendors were from the Fort Collins area and/or within a 250 mile radius, and qualify as community-based single or multi-ingredient products. Only products created locally were counted; we excluded products that were "distributed" locally.

To determine an animal product, only products that were completely animal based were included (fresh, frozen and canned). For example, products like fish, ham, sausage, eggs, milk, butter, cream cheese and yogurt were counted but products like mac and cheese, chicken tortilla soup or ham and cheese hot pockets were not included.


This data was collected based on purchasing inventories provided by Housing and Dining Services and the Lory Student Center for the months of October 2018 and April 2019. For each month, products that were designated as organic or local & community based (as determined by AASHE criteria). Products were counted as organic or otherwise third party verified if they explicitly mentioned it on the label or if the vendor identified that product as organic or otherwise 3rd party verified. Products were counted local & community based if vendors were from the Fort Collins area and/or within a 250 mile radius, and qualify as community-based single or multi-ingredient products. Only products created locally were counted; we excluded products that were "distributed" locally.

To determine an animal product, only products that were completely animal based were included (fresh, frozen and canned). For example, products like fish, ham, sausage, eggs, milk, butter, cream cheese and yogurt were counted but products like mac and cheese, chicken tortilla soup or ham and cheese hot pockets were not included.

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.