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 best demonstrates this philosophy through composting, conserving energy and resources, eating seasonally, preparing our food from scratch, and recycling.

Sterling College has participated in the "Real Food Challenge" in the past and continued to track the kitchen purchases to maintain a consistent inventory. This data set is from the 2019-2020 academic year and stops at the end of March of 2020 as kitchen operations ceased with COVID-19 lockdown. For conventional animal products, only ham and turkey deli purchases were under this category, so these have been highlighted green in the spreadsheet. A lot of the ratings are hyper-focused and relative to big Ag - we purchase quite a large amount locally, and while the folks we buy from implement best practices - the majority of them cannot afford to be certified by these larger corporate firms. Rather than do what the RFC spreadsheet does - duplicates of items, we didn't bother re-typing duplicates. These are all of the items and their categories that we've purchased for these date ranges. All spices are natural - but not certified organic, so we didn't spend time typing all of them out (we order about 40 different spices over the course of 3 months).

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.