Portland Community College
OP-7: Dining Service Procurement

We analyzed our general ledger report and then analyzed the spend of our top vendors. We got an invenotry of purchases for the Fiscal Year 2023 from our top supplier, removed packaging and non-food items and then isolated a vendor list from both the general ledger report and the top supplier of foods.

We also removed line items for non-food items such as coffee cups, coffee supply and restaurant licenses and removed those dollar amounts from our total food spend. The remaining unalyzed spend was categorized as non-sustainable s a default.

In terms of sustainably or ethically produced foods, we were only able to recognize one brand (Equal Exchange) as being Fair Trade and a few products that were labeled as organic in the line items from our top supplier. A deeper dive into some of our specific coffee purchases might find more fair trade coffee in the future.

We analyzed our general ledger report and then analyzed the spend of our top vendors. We got an inventory of purchases for the Fiscal Year 2023 from our top supplier, removed packaging and non-food items and then used the TASTE food calculator to determine plant-based spend. (We did a comparative analysis by hand and found the tool comparable to our own determination - the tool was better at identifying some challenging processed items that contained potentially animal based thickeners in beverages).

In our general ledger report, we also took a look at our invoices from a local produce company and determined that we weren't purchasing non-vegetable items (e.g. dressings). Similarly we noted that we had some line items for things like coffee cups, coffee supply and restaurant licenses and removed those dollar amounts from our total food spend. The remaining unanalyzed spend was categorized as animal products as a default.

We analyzed our general ledger report and then analyzed the spend of our top vendors. We got an invenotry of purchases for the Fiscal Year 2023 from our top supplier, removed packaging and non-food items and then isolated a vendor list from both the general ledger report and the top supplier of foods.

We also removed line items for non-food items such as coffee cups, coffee supply and restaurant licenses and removed those dollar amounts from our total food spend. The remaining unalyzed spend was categorized as non-sustainable s a default.

We used the general ledger report to identify our vendors.  We also worked with our food service team to identify the social impact suppliers. We screened the individual businesses from our major food supplier, US Foods and direct purchases in our general ledger and found purchases from businesses that met the following categories: employee owned, cooperatives (e.g. Tillamook, OceanSpray), b-corps, MSC/BAP and or ASC certified, GSI certified, employee stock option owned, short-supply chain (CA standard) and one hyper local/family owned businesses (a coffee roaster that works directly with the cofee growers, where a large % of the coffee sold is also fair trade).

It's important to recognize that our dining services are only just becoming fully operational after reopening slowly post-covid. In the process, we have had much more limited food offerings in past years, particularly when it comes to smaller businesses.