Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 68.72
Liaison Greg Maginn
Submission Date Jan. 18, 2019
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

The Ohio State University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Timothy Keegstra
Associate Director
Dining Services
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a published sustainable dining policy?:
Yes

A brief description of the sustainable dining policy:

Ohio State established strategic sustainability goals to move the university toward a global model of sustainable operations and practices. University leaders have supported an initiative through the Discovery Themes to transform food systems on campus, in the community, and across Ohio and beyond to achieve food security and promote good health.

Ohio State's Food Sustainability Panel was created to develop a strategic plan for our dining halls and other places on campus that serve food as the university seeks to move toward our goal of 40% local and/or sustainably sourced food by 2025. The panel’s role is to propose action items and guidelines as appropriate as the university works to achieve the sustainable food goal. We are working very hard every day towards the University's goal of reaching 40% Local and Sustainable food by year 2025.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor source food from a campus garden or farm?:
Yes

A brief description of the program to source food from a campus garden or farm:

The Office of Student Life Dining Services works with CFAES to procure beef, pork and produce grown on our campus farms. This year we will be planting three acres of vegetable gardens on Waterman farm (Columbus campus).

Nearly 100% of our fresh chickens come from local farms in Wayne County. Majority of the farms are Amish owned. Majority of our liquid dairy (approximately 85%) come from local dairy farms. We support over 200 dairy farms in Ohio.

We received recognition in 2016 for distributing over 60,000 meals to Mid-Ohio food bank. We also work with OSU food pantry dedicated to students with food security concerns.

https://dining.osu.edu/sustainability/local-and-sustainable-food/


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host a farmers market, community supported agriculture (CSA) or fishery program, and/or urban agriculture project, or support such a program in the local community?:
Yes

A brief description of the farmers market, CSA or urban agriculture project:

Student CSA
The OSU Student Farm offers community supported agriculture (CSA). Students from any major are invited to help maintain and manage the student farm. The student farm is located at the Waterman Agriculture and Natural Resources Laboratory.

https://hcs.osu.edu/undergraduate/student-clubs/ohio-state-student-farm


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a vegan dining program that makes diverse, complete-protein vegan options available to every member of the campus community at every meal?:
Yes

A brief description of the vegan dining program:

Our current menu mix indicates that twenty percent of our options, throughout Dining Services, are vegan (fifty-six percent are vegetarian). We are working towards thirty percent of our options being vegan. Currently all of our vegan options are tagged with a “V” at the point of sale, so students can easily identify all items that are free of any animal-derived ingredients, including honey. We also indicate vegan items on our website (students can click on “Vegan” and all vegan options at specific locations will pop up).

Vegan promotional activities, we do have special events throughout the year. Two great examples are our Food Fairs, which happen in September and January at the Instructional Kitchen in the Ohio Union. This is an event where we highlight some of our favorite vegetarian and vegan options by sampling them to students. We like to bring in new items at this time, so students can try them, rate them and provide us with valuable feedback (if the feedback is good, we might just bring it into to an operation!). We also do a cooking class during National Nutrition Month and try to do all vegetarian (and mostly vegan) foods during this time. Last year was the first year for this event and it was a huge success, filling up within one week of promotion.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host low impact dining events (e.g. Meatless Mondays)?:
No

A brief description of the low impact dining events:
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Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host sustainability-themed meals (e.g. local harvest dinners)?:
No

A brief description of the sustainability-themed meals:
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Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor host a sustainability-themed food outlet on-site, either independently or in partnership with a contractor or retailer?:
Yes

A brief description of the sustainability-themed food outlet:

Buckeye ISA Program
The Kellogg-funded project is an example, a twist on a popular economic food model known as community-supported agriculture, or CSA, in which many individuals pay a farmer at the start of a growing season for a share of the anticipated harvest. Under the InFACT plan, there would be many farmers or gardeners and one very large buyer, a model Hoy is calling institution-supported agriculture, or the Buckeye ISA.

The Buckeye ISA project supports one of the pillars of Ohio State's sustainability program—namely, to increase the amount of local and sustainably sourced food served on campus to 40 percent by 2025. It's a tall task, but Hoy, InFACT Executive Director Brian Snyder, and a panel of faculty, staff and students are developing a plan to meet the goal. The Buckeye ISA project might contribute only a small percentage of the volume needed to meet the 40 percent target, but it offers an opportunity for families who could really benefit from the opportunity to find a place at the table.

“We hope to make a lasting difference in the health and livelihood of our neighbors, now and for generations to come,” Snyder said. “The intent of this project is to address a root cause of food insecurity by bringing new economic opportunities to the communities that need them the most, relying on Ohio State's buying power.”

As envisioned in the Buckeye ISA plan, Ohio State campus lands would be used as demonstration and training sites, and faculty, staff, students and community partners would extend this training and assistance into surrounding neighborhoods and communities.

For Mike Hogan, OSU Extension Educator and Associate Professor, Buckeye ISA presents another opportunity for the university to help the community it shares.

https://discovery.osu.edu/ohio-state-project-leverages-institutional-food-purchasing-help-disadvantaged-families-improve


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor inform customers about low impact food choices and sustainability practices through labeling and signage in dining halls?:
Yes

A brief description of the sustainability labeling and signage in dining halls:

The Office of Student Life Dining Services' goal is to have 100% transparency on our food sources. We want to connect all of our food purchases to its origin.

Yes (https://dining.osu.edu/NetNutrition/1), seen on the right side of the screen you can indicate the type of food you would like displayed per heading that is clicked on.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor engage in outreach efforts to support learning and research about sustainable food systems?:
Yes

A brief description of the outreach efforts to support learning and research about sustainable food systems:

OSU plans to achieve 100% transparency with regard to the sources and production means for all food currently sourced for campus dining venues. For all fresh food, including produce, meat, eggs, and dairy products, we will know the farms producing our food and basic information about the production method used on those farms. For processed food products, we will know the location of the processing facilities involved and the geographical range, if not the exact locations, of the producers they rely upon for raw materials.

This involves fostering relationships with farms and other food system actors that encourage open communication of practices and shared goals to create a healthier, more resilient food system. In addition, we ask that all vendors supplying our dining halls and other campus dining facilities comply with this policy, given reasonable notice.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have other sustainability-related initiatives (e.g. health and wellness initiatives, making culturally diverse options available)?:
Yes

A brief description of the other sustainability-related dining initiatives:

Culturally diverse culinary options are available to all students, faculty, and staff across campus.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor participate in a competition or commitment program and/or use a food waste prevention system to track and improve its food management practices?:
Yes

A brief description of the food recovery competition or commitment program or food waste prevention system:

The Office of Student Life Dining Services has two EnviroPure systems in our largest Traditional dining location. EnviroPure is a self-contained, continual feed, organic food disposal system designed to convert food waste into water

Traditions at Scott has two Bio-digesters, one upstairs and one on the first floor. Staff remove the plates from the rotating dish rack and scrape the dishes in a trough that uses a closed system of water that moves the organic material to an extractor. When the basket on the extractor is full it is dumped into a grinder that fills a digester tank. The biomass in the tanks digests with the addition of a proprietary blend of all natural organic nutrients, to increase the metabolic efficiency and accelerate the biochemical reactions involved in the decomposition of food waste. This transforms the food waste into a greywater effluent that can be safely disposed of into existing municipal water systems and significantly reduces the material going to the land fill.


Has the institution or its primary dining services contractor implemented trayless dining (in which trays are removed from or not available in dining halls) and/or modified menus/portions to reduce post-consumer food waste?:
Yes

A brief description of the trayless dining or modified menu/portion program:

In an effort to conserve water and cut down on food waste, Dining Halls at The Ohio State University have moved to a trayless system. We are tray less in all of our campus Dining Locations. This includes our three large all-you-care-to-eat Traditions Dining locations. Tray less dining reduces both water and cleaning chemical use.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor donate food that would otherwise go to waste to feed people?:
Yes

A brief description of the food donation program:

Buckeye Food Alliance

In 2014, a research group at Ohio State conducted a survey that determined 15 percent of undergraduate students—approximately 7,000—suffer from the effects of very low food security. This means that, on a frequent basis, these Buckeyes are unable to afford enough food to adequately feed themselves.

While the university does its part to ensure students who live on campus have a meal plan, some of those students acknowledged several of their peers lacked reliable access to affordable, nutritious food.

After searching for a convenient, safe, and comfortable space for students that offered the room necessary to accommodate large amounts of inventory, the university generously donated a space in Lincoln Tower. After months of renovations and collecting food, Buckeye Food Alliance opened its doors on March 30, 2016.

https://www.buckeyefoodalliance.org/


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor divert food materials from the landfill, incinerator or sewer for animal feed or industrial uses (e.g. converting cooking oil to fuel, on-site anaerobic digestion)?:
Yes

A brief description of the food materials diversion program:

We have two buildings that have pulper systems, Kennedy and the Ohio Union. Traditions at Kennedy has a compact system that operates in the dish room. Customer’s food waste is scrapped in a trough that uses a closed system of water that moves the organic material to an extractor that lifts the waste into a container and keeps the water in the trough system. The Ohio Union has a whole building system with collectors in each operation and the water/waste mixture is pumped though pipes to one extractor at the back dock. The water is returned to the closed system to be reused to transport the organic material. We are in the process of installing a third new pulping system at the Culinary Production Kitchen.

The extracted organic pulp at both Kennedy and the Ohio Union is picked up and taken to a company called Quasar Energy Group. They have a biomass waste-to-energy technology utilizing anaerobic digestion. This system converts the biomass into biogas that can be used to generate electricity and thermal heat or produce natural gas or compressed natural gas (CNG).

All of our used fryer oils are recycled and sold on the open market and it gets developed into biofuel. We have two different processes to recycle fryer oil. We have a closed delivery and pick up system at Traditions at Scott and all the Ohio Union operations. This system has closed storage tanks for the new oil and it is pumped to the fryers. When the fryer oil needs to be replaced the old oil is pumped to a dedicated closed tank. The company that manages this system both supplies us new and takes the old oil away. This system will be a part of our operation in Pomerene Hall when we reopen. The second system we use is a company that comes in and removes the used oil directly from the fryers. We have this system at THE Culinary Production Kitchen, Traditions at Kennedy and Traditions at Morrill.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a pre-consumer composting program?:
Yes

A brief description of the pre-consumer composting program:

Pre- and post-consumer waste pulping system for several of our dining operations. The pulper breaks down the organic material, which is then shipped to an off-site anaerobic digestion system and converted into biogas used to produce energy. This system reduces waste by up to 88% in volume.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor have a post-consumer composting program?:
Yes

A brief description of the post-consumer composting program:

Pre- and post-consumer waste pulping system for several of our dining operations. The pulper breaks down the organic material, which is then shipped to an off-site anaerobic digestion system and converted into biogas used to produce energy. This system reduces waste by up to 88% in volume.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor utilize reusable service ware for “dine in” meals?:
Yes

A brief description of the reusable service ware program:

All the dining halls on campus have re-usable silverware and plates.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor provide reusable and/or third party certified compostable containers and service ware for “to-go” meals (in conjunction with an on-site composting program)?:
Yes

A brief description of the compostable containers and service ware:

In 2017, Traditions at Scott began offering re-usable/biodegradable to-go containers and utensils, and offering tray-less and bag-free service. Our No. 1 purchased disposable container is 100% compostable.


Does the institution or its primary dining services contractor offer discounts or other incentives to customers who use reusable containers (e.g. mugs) instead of disposable or compostable containers in “to-go” food service operations?:
Yes

A brief description of the reusable container discount or incentives program:

The Office of Student Life Dining Services has one of the most comprehensive reusable cup programs in the country. As part of an innovative, new sustainability program, MYCup gives you an easy way to be environmentally friendly. Fill this reusable cup at any Student Life Dining Services locations and specified Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. The Cupanion cup helps with environmental sustainability in an effort to reduce the number of paper coffee cups in the cafe locations.

Patrons of Ohio State Dining Services locations offering coffee and tea products may refill reusable mugs at the price of a small beverage.


Has the institution or its primary dining services contractor implemented other materials management initiatives to minimize waste not covered above (e.g. working with vendors and other entities to reduce waste from food packaging)?:
No

A brief description of other dining services materials management initiatives:
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The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.