Sterling College (VT)
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Sterling College has the most progressive food service of any college in the country. We grow a significant percentage of our own food, and source as much local food as possible. We do not use a food-service company. Instead, our chefs work alongside students to cook healthy, creative, and delicious meals. Our kitchen staff works hard to uphold the kitchen’s Mission Statement: “The mission of Sterling’s Food Service is to manage the food system as an integral part of our educational programs by demonstrating a living-what-we-teach philosophy.” Our kitchen best demonstrates this philosophy through composting, conserving energy and resources, eating seasonally, preparing our food from scratch, and recycling.

Sterling College participates in the "Real Food Challenge". Here is a description: The Real Food Challenge leverages the power of youth and universities to create a healthy, fair and green food system. Our primary campaign is to shift $1 billion of existing university food budgets away from industrial farms and junk food and towards local/community-based, fair, ecologically sound and humane food sources—what we call “real food”—by 2020. The Real Food Challenge also maintains a national network of student food activists—providing opportunities for networking, learning, and leadership development for thousands of emerging leaders.

The Sterling Kitchen actively breaks the stereotype for campus dining by pushing the envelope of what a healthy, systems-focused dining experience can be. The Kitchen intentionally and reciprocally integrates operations with the Sterling Farm to meet the needs of the land and the people it supports. Additionally, we are dedicated to participating in the rebuilding of the Northeast Kingdom’s food system and prioritize sourcing of products grown in the local community, starting with those produced on Sterling’s own farm. The Sterling Kitchen intentionally designs and refines systems to increase sustainability and strengthen Sterling’s food system and working lands, collaborating closely with the farm staff. As the Sterling Kitchen’s ambitions and outputs grow, the kitchen streamlines operations and upgrades facilities to simultaneously promote safety and efficiency, and maintain the integrity of the food it produces. The Kitchen supports and implements food and land conservation practices, and serves food in a welcoming, inclusive, educational space. While we aim to raise awareness about the impacts of our food choices, we emphasize that values-based eating does not imply or permit judgmental dining, but prioritizes thoughtful and respectful dialog. Because it is embedded within an environmental stewardship college, the Sterling Kitchen is charged with educating about the environmental, economic, and social health of our local food systems, as well as about contemporary principles of nutrition. It is an intellectual, social, and community-centered space where students, faculty, and staff connect. It is also a primary site for the intentional connection of Sterling’s academic curriculum with food, community work, life, and play. We are dedicated to maintaining this space to model, facilitate and encourage a commitment to social and environmental justice principles within our food and agricultural systems.