Green Mountain College
OP-6: Food Purchasing

Green Mountain College’s Sustainable Food Purchasing Initiative (in conjunction with Chartwell’s Dining Services) Tracking Methods & Results: STARS Submission: Dining Services July 2011 Green Mountain College has created what may be the most rigorous “sustainable food” assessment of any college in the United States. For the past five years, the College has tracked invoices for every single food purchase made for its dining operations during the academic year. Each year, faculty, staff, and students have worked to refine the methodology and the criteria utilized to categorize these purchases. As a result of this careful documentation and extensive research of its food sources, GMC has the ability to: 1. make precise claims as to the sustainability of the foods used in its dining services 2. research options for increasing these food sources, 3. clarify the budgetary and sourcing challenges involved in furthering this sustainable food purchasing initiative. Each item purchased from every distributor is entered into a master spreadsheet. By analyzing this spreadsheet at the end of each academic year, Green Mountain College is able to determine the exact percentage of purchases that are organic and/or local (as defined by STARS, as well as other metric systems) with accuracy and precision. Green Mountain College is committed to sustainable agriculture and strives to serve local and responsibly produced foods in the dining hall whenever possible. In addition to offering a new masters program in Sustainable Food Systems, the College is nationally known for its major in Sustainable Agriculture & Food Production, an academic program that offers students the opportunity to work on the college’s on-campus farm. Through a combination of coursework and experience working on the farm, students are able to explore vegetable production, livestock management, development of farm infrastructure, and marketing techniques as they take part in producing some of the vegetables, eggs, and meats featured in the dining hall. Along with Chartwells dining services, students and faculty have long been exploring new ways to offer local, organic, and other sustainable food options. These efforts became more formal after a nine-credit block course, entitled "Food, Agriculture, and Community Development in the Northeast," was offered in the fall of 2006. Students and three faculty members wrapped up the course by developing a set of sustainable purchasing guidelines for the dining hall. These sustainable purchasing guidelines provided the college with the following targets: • To increase local food purchases by 5% of the total food budget each year over the years 2007-2010 • To maximize the purchase of appropriately-certified products (such as organic and fair-trade) • To ensure that sustainable food products are prominently featured in the dining hall • To develop methods for assessing and ensuring current and future progress Summary of Findings for 2009-2010 In the 2009-2010 academic year, GMC’s Chartwells dining services purchased $6,425 dollars worth of produce and meat from the college farm to be served in the GMC dining hall. The purchase of five pigs raised by students on the college farm prompted a celebratory localvore feast which featured the pork and an array of seasonal vegetables and other Vermont products. In addition to sourcing ingredients from the college farm, Chartwells spent another $84,9741 in support of Vermont businesses. These sources included Vermont-based producers such as Thomas Dairy and Champlain Orchards and Vermont-based distributers and suppliers such as Black River Produce and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. These purchases represented 16% of the College’s total food purchases. The College also strives to support local businesses in purchases of non-food items such as linens and kitchenware. Green Mountain strives to increase sustainable purchasing and uses small-scale New England based distributors when logistically and financially feasible. In 2009-2010 Green Mountain College spent $155,500 or 27%2 of the entire budget on products distributed by New England based companies such as Sid Wainer, Black River, Green Mountain Coffee Company. These companies are small and local, and as such can be more readily held accountable in terms of environmental and social responsibility than some of the larger and more inaccessible corporations. However, due to the college’s careful documentation of its food sources, GMC recognizes that some of the products provided by these regionally-based companies do not meet STARS guidelines. To be precise, making the claim that 27% of the college’s food budget is STARS certified would be approximately 13% too high. Some other colleges seem to be less assiduous in their tracking and assessment and more readily inclined to categorize food items provided by regional distributors as STARS certified, regardless of the actual origin/processing location of those foods. 1 $84,974 includes all purchases from Black River Produce, Champlain Orchards, Green Mountain Coffee Company, Koffee Kup Bakery, Sid Wainer, & Son Specialty Foods, Thomas Dairy, Vermont Roots, and some purchases made using P-Card (credit card for Chartwells) and cash. Together with $6,423.75 spent on produce from Cerridwen Farm, these purchases total $91,219.94, or 16% of total purchases. 2 $155,500 or 27% of the total food budget was spent on products sourced from distributors that are based within 250 miles of the college. This number excludes third-party certified (organic, fair trade, etc) produce that was sourced from distributors based farther than 250 miles from the college. $168,883.23 or 29.2% of the total food budget was spent on products sourced from distributors within 250 miles and third-party certified products that are sourced from distributors farther than 250 miles.