Cal Poly Humboldt
IN-26: Innovation C

Humboldt State University has strengthened efforts to minimize food and organics waste over the course of the last four years. HSU has taken a multi-pronged approach, attempting to address food security through an on-campus group called Oh Snap Student Food Programs while also utilizing a two-tier, pre- and post-consumer composting program and working diligently to improve responsible stock management.

Efforts to address food security were strongly spurred by a study co-authored by Social Work Professor Jen Maguire in 2015. The study, commissioned by CSU Chancellor Timothy White, aimed at identifying and addressing housing instability and hunger among CSU students. With staggering results that around 98,700 CSU students (or 21%) were worried about hunger, HSU bolstered an on-campus program called Oh Snap (originally started in 2013). The mission of Oh Snap was to increase access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food for all HSU students by engaging in campus and community partnerships. Furthermore, the program aimed to create and maintain a campus food pantry, recover edible food from campus events, provide a no-cost weekly fresh food stand, offer assistance with CalFresh applications, and educate students on healthy food preparation. The development, maintenance, and expansion of Oh Snap has shown success in addressing food insecurity among HSU students, in particular due to the attention garnered by Maguire's research and with CalFresh Federal grants awarded to the program. The program hosted more than 8,000 student visitors during the 2015-2016 year.

In addition, during approximately the same time period, the Sustainability & Waste Coordinator at HSU began exploring local options for diverting food waste and other organics from the landfill. This led to investigation of local composting programs, and expansion of outreach strategies aimed at behavior change. In the Fall of 2016, HSU secured a contract with a local worm farmer to divert food waste from the campus landfill stream so that it could be turned into an organic, nutrient-rich soil amendment. With this contract, HSU helps to incubate/support a small, local start-up business, and contributes to a closed loop food system whereby food waste assists local food farmers in building healthy soils and generating more local food. The partnership has increased food waste diversion to an average monthly rate of nearly 20,000 lbs!

The third campus partner substantially contributing to minimization of food waste is Dining Services at HSU. Dining has implemented several procedural changes to their operations, including closely tracking leftovers for efficient stock management, buying and serving local products and ingredients, wrapping/reselling and cooking with leftovers, linking catering clients to the campus food pantry, utilizing an a la carte sales system, offering condiments in bulk, and composting food waste throughout their facilities.

Finally, the Sustainability Coordinator reintroduced the Food Recovery Challenge to HSU during the Fall of 2016. The challenge dictates a hierarchy for food recovery which prioritizes source reduction and feeding hungry people over the feeding of animals, industrial uses, and composting. The hierarchy has led HSU to successfully recover more than 1,254 lbs of food (Oct 2016 through March 2017), or put another way, has facilitated the donation of more than 300 lbs of edible food per month on average to hungry students.

Read more about Oh Snap at http://hsuohsnap.org/
Read more about campus composting at http://www2.humboldt.edu/sustainability/recycling#Compost
Read more about Dining Services at https://dining.humboldt.edu/sustainability