Santa Clara University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

The Forge Garden is SCU's 1/2-acre organic urban agriculture project that functions not only as a living lab, but also as a production garden. The Forge hosts a weekly farm stand featuring organic produce harvested on site. It is open to both the school community and the public. The Forge is also a CSA pick-up site for a local, small-scale farm.

Often referred to as BUG, Bronco Urban Gardens is the food justice initiative of Santa Clara University’s Center for Sustainability, based out of The Forge Garden, and works in solidarity with marginalized neighborhoods, supporting their urban garden projects and spaces, to create hands-on learning experiences for students of all ages and backgrounds, including SCU students. BUG provides technical support and garden-enhanced education that serves to increase ecological literacy and raise nutritional awareness as well as food access.

The Forge Garden is also a pick-up site for a weekly CSA of a local organic farm in Santa Clara County.

All dining programs have sustainability components to them, as Dining Services is provided by Bon Appetit, which has a commitment to “Food Service for a Sustainable Future.”

Cellar Market, SCU’s on-campus convenience store, has a section devoted to featuring Real Foods.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit hosts a number of sustainability themed meals throughout the year, including an annual Eat Local Challenge with 100% local ingredients to create excitement around regional foodsheds and local agriculture.

Farm to Fork is a company-wide initiative to buy locally from small, owner-operated farms and ranches within a 150-mile radius. This accounts for 23% of purchases in the 2018-19 academic year. Some of the local SMES include America Fresh, aggregate from four local and organic farms; San Francisco Fine Bakery, a local bakery; Wonder Ice Cream, a local distributor; Vince’s Shellfish Company, mostly local seafood; Classic Wines of California, locally purchased wines; Marin Sun Farms, a local beef and pork producer; Mary’s Ranch, a local chicken farmer; Mi Rancho Tortillas, a local tortilla producer; and Glaum Egg Ranch, a local egg distributor.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit hosts an annual "Low Carbon Diet Day" where specials feature menu items with a lower climate impact, and Earth Day celebrations, where educational materials and/or activities focused on the environmental impact of food choices are placed throughout the cafe. Vegetarian options are available at all dining cafes as well.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit prioritizes plant-based proteins in the cafes and a complete protein vegan option is available to the campus community at every meal served in our cafés. Dining Services communicates vegan options to diners using the Vegan Circle of Responsibility icon, on both online menus and menus in the café. The "Farmer's Pantry" dining stations regularly offers a variety of seasonal produce with soy, legumes and whole grains during every operating hour. At satellite cafes, nuts, fruits and vegetables are available for snacking.

Here is a list of common items served in cafes daily that are vegan.

Stacks
1. Breads - Sliced potato, marble-rye, gluten-free bread, sweet, sourdough or Dutch crunch rolls are vegan. Tortilla wraps and lavosh (used in grab-n-go wraps) are vegan.
2. Meat & Dairy alternatives - Yves deli slices, soy or rice cheese slices. Tofurkey as a vegan meat
3. Spreads - sundried tomato, house-made hummus, avocado, cranberry sauce, vegan mayonnaise, mustard

La Parrilla
Rice (rice, tomato, salt, canola oil), beans (beans, water, garlic, salt, canola oil, herbs, onion), corn tortillas and shells, and any marinated, grilled vegetables are vegan (however, vegetables are grilled on a shared cooktop).

Globe and Expo
Daily comfort and global vegetarian/ vegan specials are served in addition to entrée sides that can be purchased separately (vegetables, noodles, rice, etc). Asian sauces are made from scratch and bases may contain fish/oyster sauce. Falafels are also a specialty that is available.

Farmer's Pantry
1. Breads - bagels, sliced sourdough bread, sliced potato, sliced marble rye, English muffins (whole wheat and regular), and dinner rolls are vegan. Gluten-free bread options are also available
2. Beverages - soy milk is available in a small dispenser near the cereal and/or the coffee machine.
3. Cereal - Raisin Bran*, Rice Krispies*, Lucky Charms*, Cinnamon Toast*, Special K Red Berries, Heart to Heart, Cheerios, Rice Chex (*these items do not indicate source of Vitamin D). Hot cereals (oatmeal, cream of wheat, grits are all vegan).
4. Whole grains, lentils, beans, seasoned tofu, and avocado are provided for alternate protein sources.

Mission Bakery
Mission Bakery serves vegan smoothie options.

Bronco
House-made local flour for pizza dough (with gluten-free options and house-made pizza sauce (simply crushed tomatoes and herbs) are vegan as well as sautéed vegetables (mushrooms, garlic, etc. are made with olive oil). A cheeseless personal pizza with a gluten-free crust may be ordered anytime and is an option. Vegetarian burger: Gardenburger vegetable patty (vegan). It is not possible to cook items separately from other menu items (fried or grilled). Plain, gluten-free, whole-wheat, sesame buns are vegan. Beyond Burgers were a new addition for plant-based eaters.

Poke
Vegan options include choosing the marinated (vegan sauce) tofu (as an alternative to ahi and salmon). There are a variety of vegetable toppings including carrots, edamame, peppers, pineapple, onions, and seaweed salad. The soy sauce is gluten-free as well.

Penne
This pasta stand will have a vegan pasta sauce that is made from scratch as well as vegan and gluten-free pasta options.

Power Up
A new option that is both vegan and gluten-free will be a protein bowl offered during lunch on weekdays as an alternative eating option.

Cellar Market
SCU's on-campus mini market is a fantastic resource for vegan/vegetarian guests, with a wide range of products for preparing in room or eating on the go. Be sure to request a favorite item—just ask! Students are invited to email diningservices@scu.edu or call 408.554.5411.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit informs guests about low impact food choices and sustainability practices in many ways. On guest tables and in signs around the cafe, they share information about pressing sustainability issues and relevant policies, including antibiotic use on animal farms, animal welfare issues, sustainable food choices, etc. Using their Circle of Responsibility (COR) program, they communicate sustainability attributes of ingredients through online and in-cafe menus. Menus are labeled with COR icons that denote the following (and more): if the dish includes local ingredients, and which farm they are from; if the dish includes animal products from a farm with a third party animal welfare certification; if the dish includes seafood rated as Green or Yellow by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program; if the dish is vegetarian or vegan.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit prepares food from scratch, especially their sauces and soups, and practices "batch-cooking" in order to not prepare more food than needed. Dining Services by Bon Appetit has partnered with our campus chapter of the Food Recovery Network to donate leftover food to Martha's Kitchen, a nearby soup-kitchen in San Jose.

They closely follow the EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy and have been named to the USDA U.S Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champion list, pledging to take tangible steps to reduce waste by 50% by 2030.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit has implemented trayless dining. Many meal stations also serve customers directly, allowing them to dictate if they would like smaller portions or not be served an item they will not eat.

SCU established our chapter of Food Recovery Network (FRN) in May 2014. Multiple times per week, volunteers pick up excess food from Dining Services' kitchens and then drive it to a local food bank, which later redistributes to multiple food banks and soup kitchens. As of May 2019, SCU's FRN has recovered 14.7 tons of food for donation.

Food has also been donated to the food pantries on campus to feed on-campus students who are food insecure.

Filta Fryer comes weekly to collect the Canola cooking oil and containment boxes from the kitchens on campus to make a biofuel. This service extends the lifespan of cooking oil, thus minimizing waste.

There is also a 4-yd towable at the back dock that collects food scraps for animal feed.

Beginning in 2009, a multitude of compost collection bins have been placed throughout the kitchen prep spaces and behind cafe counters, with additional bins being added or moved as needed to support the staff. The Center for Sustainability attends Dining Services by Bon Appetit "10 at 10" minutes to educate staff members on proper waste diversion practices. To supplement this information, extensive signage regarding proper waste diversion is posted above disposal receptacles.

Compost collection bins at the dish return make it simple for students to sort their waste, as well as throughout the dining hall and campus cafe areas.

Compost bins are provided adjacent to all recycling and landfill waste containers in SCU's dining hall, all academic buildings, and all residence halls. Residence halls have compost collection bins for paper towels in their restrooms, and students can receive a free in-room compost collection container.

Reusable, washable dishware is available at the main dining hall. Eco-trays, a reusable to-go container, is also available for usage at all campus cafes. These can be brought anywhere and then returned to a cafe to be washed and redistributed.

Students may also choose disposable serviceware, which is recyclable or compostable.

Students are encouraged to dine-in with reusable serviceware. If students need to take their food to-go, they have a variety of compostable options available including clamshells and salad tupperwares which are BPI certified compostable. Dining Services by Bon Appetit also offers compostable Coke drink cups. All compostable to-go ware can be disposed of at compost collection bins campus-wide. Eco-trays are also available at all campus cafes; eco-trays are reusable plastic clamshell containers that students pay a small, one-time fee for and then can return the tray to any cafe to be washed and redistributed.

Customers who use their own reusable mug receive a $0.25 discount at SCU cafes.
Faculty and staff who use an Eco-tray at Adobe Lodge receive a $0.50 discount.

Dining Services by Bon Appetit provides information regarding healthy choices for active students, who comprise a large part of the student population, as well as feature rotating ethnically diverse dinner and lunch specials. Sustainability and well-being is at the heart of what Dining Services by Bon Appetit does. For example, they host monthly Wellbeing Wednesday to educate guests about a variety of healthy eating topics, such as healthy fats and whole grain consumption, sugar-savvy education initiative, and always make culturally diverse options available in the café.

Food waste reduction: The Center for Sustainability regularly conducts "Scrape Your Plate" to measure food waste in our dining hall. Students measure all food waste from four meals each quarter. Participants learn about why food waste is a climate change issue, help collect data on SCU food waste, and help change student behavior.

Also see: https://www.scu.edu/sustainability/operations/food/
http://www.bamco.com/sourcing/