Luther College
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Luther has developed a rich tradition of supporting local farmers through food purchases. Given that the college is the largest institutional food buyer in the northeast Iowa region, we recognize the impact of our food dollars on the local economy. Luther’s definition of local and community based food: Food raised or processed by co-ops and businesses within a 100 mile radius for large farms, coops and businesses or a 200 mile radius for small to mid-size farmer-owned and operated farms and businesses. Foods considered local must also be minimally processed, produced in an environmentally sound way under fair labor conditions, and be procured from transparent farms and businesses open to hosting students for educational purposes. From 2015-2018 we have identified our food purchasing goals as the following: 1) Increase sustainable food purchasing in select food categories: Dairy - 75% local (all dairy - milk, yogurt, soft-serve, ice cream, cheese) Meat - 50% local (pork and beef) Poultry - 20% local (turkey and chicken) Produce - 25% local (non-canned SnoPac, Gardens, Grown Locally) Coffee and Tea - 98% Fair Trade 2) Improve nutritional environment in campus eateries (e.g. making water the default beverage) 3) Reduce food waste in all campus venues

Local purchases are tracked on a weekly basis in a spreadsheet that tracks local spending against total food expenditures. This spreadsheet allows the purchaser to provide up-to-date reports to the Food, Purchasing and Waste Task Group and College Administration about local purchases. Information in this STARS report is based on purchases from June 2015 - May 2016. The total local spend we calculated based on that spreadsheet was 27.5% but that number dropped to 14.04% when we took into account the STARS requirements that food be both local and community based and not from CAFOs. The attached spreadsheet includes three tabs. The first tab catalogs all local and community based and third party verified foods that are counted as part of our percentage being reported through STARS. The second tab captures items that we consider to have a local impact and include in our local percentage. The third tab is where percentages are calculated by vendor as evidence of where our numbers come from.

The second tab of the uploaded spreadsheet answers this question well but a brief summary is provided here. Luther College purchases some dairy products from Kemps, a regional dairy processor and distributor that we know works with farms in the region. The processing facility is located within 100 miles of campus and milk is sourced from within a certain radius. We haven't gone through the effort of asking Kemps about sustainability practices employed by their farmers nor confirmed that all milk coming into the facility is within a certain radius so we are not including these purchases in our local and community based numbers. Furthermore, we have no way to verify that some of their milk isn't coming from CAFOs. Product from Kemps is counted as an expenditure on conventionally produced animal products. Luther also has purchased cheese through Sysco from Schreiber in Wisconsin. The processing facility is within 200 miles but we have no information about the source and origins of the milk. Pork and chicken are sourced through the Iowa Food Hub. In the case of pork, the hogs are raised in confinement buildings in Northeast Iowa, slaughtered at a small-scale local processing facility and delivered by the Iowa Food Hub to our dock. The scale and nature of production practices being used to raise these hogs does not qualify as local and community-based under STARS standards. Chicken is procured through the Iowa Food Hub after being processed at a large processor 20 miles from campus. Since the origin of the chicken and production practices are unknown, we are not counting this product in our numbers. Both pork and chicken from Iowa Food Hub are counted as expenditures on conventionally raised animal products. Wildwood Farms Trail Mixes, Obrien's Granola and Bakalars Sausage Company are all located within 200 miles of Luther College but none of the raw ingredients they use are locally sourced.