Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 72.14
Liaison Kelsey Beal
Submission Date March 2, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Indiana University Bloomington
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.54 / 6.00 Makayla Bonney
Assistant Director
Sustain IU
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

This credit requires:

  • A completed STARS Food and Beverage Purchasing Inventory
  • An itemized inventory based on output from the Real Food Calculator, or
  • An alternative inventory that includes for each product:
    • Product vendor
    • Product label/brand
    • Product description
    • The category in which the product qualifies (Third Party Verified or Local & Community Based)
    • Information justifying inclusion: the standards met if the product is third party verified; ownership, size, distance, production methods for Local & Community Based products 

Part 1

Third Party Verified and Community Based Products

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:
5.19

Part 2

Animal Products 

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):
26

Food and Beverage Purchasing Inventory

Required if pursuing either part of the credit:

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):
None formally institutionalized at this time, however sustainability is one of the metrics on which vendors and contractors are rated when IU evaluates bids for food and beverage purchasing contracts. This has recently been improved to a range system, rather than a simple "yes" or "no" as to whether sustainability has been addressed; we can now rate vendors as high, medium, or low on the sustainability section of their proposal (which could affect their overall proposal rating). There will also be a sustainable food representative on relevant selection committees for food and beverage contracts.

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):
Annually, for the past several years, students have been running an audit of food purchases using the Real Food Challenge calculator; data on food purchases is coming from vendors and/or the IU staff using food management software. As information is not always available, a large part of the project has been in increasing transparency and the sharing of data. The process for tracking food purchases has improved since the effort began, but is still not available for all items. For this reason, we believe this percentage to be an underestimate.

If uploading output from the Real Food Calculator, provide:

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
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Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
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Required if pursuing either part of the credit:

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 Yes Yes
Student-run food/catering services No No
Franchises (e.g. national or global brands) Yes Yes
Convenience stores Yes Yes
Vending services Yes Yes
Concessions Yes Yes

Optional Fields 

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

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

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:
FY 15 Data

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.