Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 56.72
Liaison Christie-Joy Hartman
Submission Date May 12, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

James Madison University
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.29 / 6.00 Charlie Leventry
Sustainability Coordinator
Aramark
"---" 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:
5.38

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

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):
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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):

JMU Dining Services, contracted through Aramark, seeks to purchase sustainably sourced food and beverages and environmentally preferable products, supplies, and services. Dining Services recognizes and highlights producers who focus on reducing their environmental impact. Dining Services is committed to nurturing new connections from farm to fork and changing the culture of food by nourishing JMU with menus that emphasize seasonal, fresh, local foods that are raised, grown, harvested, and produced within 150 miles of campus or within the state of Virginia as possible.

In order to follow up with the commitment to local and sustainable food, JMU Dining Services has approached food in many different ways. Dining Services sources all shell eggs from cage-free hens, has achieved Marine Stewardship Council Chain of Custody certification at more than one location, offers Fair Trade coffee at multiple locations, opened a dining location to highlight local products, and offers exclusive 100% grass-fed beef at a location. Dining Services promotes “Meatless Mondays”, launched a catering guide that features local and sustainable food options and ways to "green" departments events, hosts annual Farm-to-Fork dinners highlighting local farmers, has partnerships with local businesses to promote their product on campus, organizes a Farmer’s Markets on campus during the fall, and partners with FarmLogix to further understand our local purchasing and increase our local purchases. Dining Services also works with the local Sysco branch to further increase our local purchases wherever possible. Dining Services also looks to increase local purchases by working with the Local Food Hub and Produce Source Partners, who both partner with local producers and farmers to help connect them to businesses.

JMU Dining Services is committed to helping local farmers connect to businesses by having their Sustainability Coordinator participate in the Virginia Sustainable Food Coalition, which is a cooperative with George Mason University, Virginia Tech University, University of Virginia, and James Madison University. Professors and representatives from each respective Dining Services work together to help or facilitate local farmers in the region to connect with local universities or businesses.


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):

JMU Dining Services, contracted through Aramark, works in conjunction with food and beverage vendors and a third party, FarmLogix, to track and monitor our purchases. By separating out food and beverage purchases on reports created by both vendors and Aramark, Dining Services and FarmLogix can focus on distinguishing between local, third party certified, and humanely raised products. Dining Services can confidently report statistics in relation to sustainable food and beverage purchases due to the participation of FarmLogix. JMU Dining also has a full-time Sustainability Coordinator who leads this process and is responsible for the accurate reporting.


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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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 No No
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 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 :
---

Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
9.30

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:
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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.