University of Pennsylvania
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Since 2004, the University Square Farmers Market has been held at the corner of 36th and Walnut Streets, outside the Penn Bookstore. The Market is open Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. year-round. The Farmers’ Market offers neighbors and members of the Penn community an opportunity to buy fresh, delicious food from local farmers as well as allowing students to make purchases using their dining plans. Some of the products offered at the market include conventional vegetables, IPM fruit & berries, sweet cider; European-style baked goods, pastries, breads, and granola; plants and flowers for the home and office, seedlings for the garden; all-natural soaps and body care products; and artisanal chocolates. This market accepts FMNP vouchers, Dining Dollars, and PennCash.

The University also hosts three campus growing spaces; including the Penn Park Orchard, the  Penn Park Farm, and the Harrison Garden.

The Penn Park Orchard is affiliated with the Philadelphia Orchard Project and is home to strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, juneberries, figs, and many other fruits, nuts, and herbs. The orchard aims to educate and create access to local food for both Penn and the wider Philadelphia community, hosting events open to anyone.

The Penn Park Farm opened in the summer of 2020 and brings together partners from the Center for Public health Initiatives, Facilities and Real Estate Services, Wellness at Penn, and Penn Sustainability. The farm will host a wide variety of programming including class visits, internships, workshops, volunteer opportunities, and events, with an emphasis on promoting wellness on campus.

The Harrison Garden is a raised-bed organic garden located between Harrison College House and Spruce Street. It serves as a shared educational space for the Penn community.

Bon Appétit and Penn Dining support the Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises, which has as its mission cultivating and investing in minority food service entrepreneurs. Dining features products produced at the Culinary Center in its retail and residential facilities.

Our institution is committed to providing inclusive and nutritious dining options for all members of the campus community. Every dining hall on campus offers diverse vegan options at every meal period, ensuring that students, faculty, and staff have access to plant-based meals throughout the day. These options are thoughtfully designed to provide balanced nutrition, including complete-protein dishes, such as grain-legume combinations, tofu-based entrees, and other plant-forward selections. The program prioritizes variety, featuring rotating menus with global flavors and seasonal ingredients to meet diverse dietary needs and preferences.

Each menu prominently displays the University's dining vendor's Circle of Responsibility (COR) icons that help guests identify foods that are vegetarian, vegan, organic, locally sourced, and more. Their proprietary system of menu labeling icons called COR Icons (COR – Circle of Responsibility) include the following:

• Farm to Fork: Contains seasonal, minimally processed ingredients from a local farm, ranch, or fishing boat.
• Locally Crafted: Contains products crafted by a small, locally owned food business using socially and/or environmentally responsible practices.
• Organic: Contains at least 95 percent organically produced ingredients (by weight) from a USDA-certified source.
• Seafood Watch: Contains seafood that meets the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guidelines for commercial buyers.
• Humane: Contains humanely raised meat, poultry, or eggs. Must be certified by a credible third-party animal welfare organization.
• Well-Being: Contains foods illustrating this month's Food for Your Well-Being topic.
• In Balance: Contains a balanced portion of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and lean protein, with a minimum amount of healthy fat.
• Vegetarian: Contains no meat, fish, poultry, shellfish, or products derived from these sources but may contain dairy or eggs.
• Vegan: Contains absolutely no animal or dairy products.
• Made Without Gluten-Containing Ingredients: Made without gluten-containing ingredients. Please speak with an onsite manager to learn how these items are prepared in open kitchens that also handle gluten for other menu items.

In collaboration with Bon Appétit, Penn has implemented a trayless dining initiative across all campus dining halls to help minimize post-consumer food waste. By removing trays, the program encourages students to take smaller portions, reducing the likelihood of excess food being discarded. This initiative is part of Penn’s broader waste management campaign, which promotes mindful consumption under the slogan, “Take all you want, eat all you take.”

Penn Dining, in partnership with Bon Appétit, collaborates with Philabundance, the largest non-profit food bank in the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley regions, to help combat hunger in the local community. Through this initiative, surplus food that has been prepared but not served is carefully collected and donated to Philabundance, ensuring that it reaches those in need instead of going to waste.

In addition, surplus food from large catering events through Bon Appétit Catering is donated to Food Connect, a local organization that bridges the gap between excess food and people experiencing food insecurity.

Penn Dining is dedicated to minimizing food waste through a robust pre-consumer composting program integrated across all dining operations. Partnering with Organic Diversion, LLC and Bennett Compost, the program ensures that food scraps and organic materials generated during food preparation are diverted from landfills and repurposed into high-quality compost. This compost supports agricultural, commercial, municipal, and personal use, contributing to sustainable practices beyond the campus.

In each kitchen, pre-consumer food waste—such as fruit peels, vegetable trimmings, and unused ingredients—is collected in compostable liners and placed in designated green bins. These bins are regularly hauled to organic recycling centers, where the waste is processed into nutrient-rich compost. Through this initiative,

Green composting bins are strategically placed at all dishware collection areas within the dining halls. Rather than relying on diners to separate food waste themselves, trained kitchen staff are responsible for scraping plates, ensuring that only compostable materials enter the bins. This process helps maintain low contamination levels, improving the quality of the compost and the efficiency of the waste diversion effort.

Penn Dining promotes sustainability through the use of reusable service ware for dine-in meals across its four primary dining halls. These dining halls are equipped with full dishwashing stations, allowing for efficient cleaning and reuse of dishes, utensils, and trays. After enjoying their meals, diners place used service ware in designated collection areas, where kitchen staff manage the washing and sanitization process to maintain hygiene standards.

Additionally, Penn offers reusable and washable green to-go containers as part of a broader effort to minimize single-use waste. Students can participate in this program by using these eco-friendly containers for meals taken to-go, helping to reduce the environmental impact associated with disposable packaging.

While the primary dining halls rely on reusable service ware, smaller satellite “grab-and-go” dining locations use some disposable items due to the nature of their service. However, these facilities are also exploring ways to adopt more sustainable practices.

Penn Dining has implemented the "Green2Go" Program in its residential dining cafes to reduce the use of disposable containers and minimize waste. Students on a dining plan are automatically enrolled in the program, promoting convenient and sustainable to-go dining. Upon their first visit, students receive a reusable Green2Go container at no additional cost. With each subsequent visit, they exchange their rinsed container at any of the three participating dining cafes for a clean one, reinforcing the habit of reuse. To further encourage participation, students who opt for a non-reusable container are charged a $2 fee, creating an incentive to stick with the reusable option.

By adopting this program, Penn Dining has successfully eliminated two-thirds of the disposable clamshell containers that would have otherwise entered the campus waste stream—an estimated reduction of 171,000 single-use containers annually. This initiative directly supports Penn's broader waste minimization and sustainability efforts by promoting a culture of reuse among the campus community.

The Green2Go program was also adapted during spring 2021 in response to COVID-19 protocols to ensure safety. During this period, containers were held behind service counters to avoid direct contact between customers and employees. Used containers were returned to conveniently placed receptacles, where they were collected, sanitized, and returned to circulation, maintaining the program’s sustainability goals while prioritizing health and safety.