Emory University
OP-6: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Emory has developed a Sustainable Food Committee to help guide the transition to more local and sustainable purchases. In 2007 this committee developed a set of guidelines to help meet our institutional goal of ensuring 75% of all food served will be locally or sustainably grown by 2015. These guidelines define "local" food as being from Georgia and food from the surrounding 8 states as "regional." Sustainably grown is defined as products that adhere to one or more of the following criteria: • Certified USDA Organic • Produced free from routine use of antibiotics and hormones • Sourced from Certified Grass-Fed Animals (American Grass-Fed Association) • Certified Humanely Raised (Humane Animal Farm Care) • Certified Sustainable (Food Alliance Certified or alternative certification) • Seafood Watch Southeast “Best” or “Good” Approved List • Certified by Marine Stewardship Council • Recognized by Sustainable Seafood Forum • Certified Fair Trade Currently, food purchasing is contracted out to Sodexo USA Food Service. Sodexo works in conjunction with approved vendors (primarily driven by Sysco, Destiny Organics, Sara Lee Bakery and FreshPoint – listed in the order of high to low contribution to sustainable purchasing). As of fiscal year 2013, 25.6% of Emory University's main campus food purchases are local or sustainable.

In 2013, Sodexo contracted with a third-party company, Ecova, to develop an Emory-specific tracking database for local and sustainable food purchases for Fiscal Years (FY) 2012-2014 based on the Sustainable Food Purchasing Guidelines developed by Emory’s Sustainable Food Committee. Ecova collected purchase invoices from Emory’s suppliers, as well as details on product locality and sustainability of purchases in each food category. Ecova was able to gather data on food purchases for 86% of Emory University’s food and beverage spend in FY 2012 and 2013.

Emory's Sustainable Food Purchasing Guidelines can be found here: http://sustainability.emory.edu/uploads/press/2013/05/2013050714054301/SustFoodPurchGuidelns5-1-13.pdf Emory does not use the STARS definition of local (“being based or originating within 250 miles (400 kilometres) of the institution”) because this radius does not make sense for the Southeast region. Our food supply is more seasonal and draws over the course of the year from surrounding states. Thus, Emory has adopted a definition of local food as deriving from Georgia and eight surrounding states. The percentage of sustainable food purchases listed here is based on a comprehensive assessment by ECOVA, as described. Emory does not include vending services in its local and sustainable food purchases, but data for on-site franchises and the only campus convenience store will be included in this section. We are unable to extract this data from our total dining services tracking because Emory’s contracted food service provider makes purchases for on-site franchises and convenience stores along with residential dining purchases.