University of Pittsburgh
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

The University of Pittsburgh’s “Pitt Farmers Market” started in 2015 as a student project to bring fresh, local food to campus. Since then, Pitt’s Dining Services adopted Pitt Farmers Market, hosting a weekly market on Thursdays in the Fall semester, along with several markets in Spring and occasional Winter offerings.

The Pitt Farmers Market is managed by the Dining Services Manager and supported by student interns who learn how to operate a farmers market.

All market vendors are small, locally-owned businesses, many of them minority-owned, selling food and/or agricultural products. Vendors often vary year-over-year, including bakeries, vegetable farmers, cheese purveyors, tea markets, coffee shops, and food trucks. Beginning in the Fall of 2023, merchandise vendors have participated in markets to provide more opportunities for local businesses to benefit from the market.

Students can use their meal plans for food items at the Market, which has become a popular feature of the meal plan; this is also an opportunity for the University to leverage meal plans to support local food systems.
From 2015 – 2023, the University has hosted 91 Farmers Markets with a combined local economic impact of nearly $350,000.

Learn more: https://www.bhas.pitt.edu/farmers-markets

Rooted is an entirely plant-based dining station in both residential dining locations on campus that serves vegetarian and vegan dishes with complete plant-based proteins at all meal periods.

The majority of the food purchased by Pitt Eats (Chartwells Higher Ed) that qualifies as "Real Food" falls into the local category, which reflects a strong University commitment (and growing achievement) to supporting local businesses and local food systems.

Pitt Eats is obligated through the foodservice contract to support small/disadvantaged/SMEs and works with the University’s procurement team to identify vendors to both purchase from and collaborate with relating to small business development.

Additionally, the University of Pittsburgh has general and focused supplier diversity goals across the university, which are both written into external vendor contracts and committed to by internal departments. Specific to dining, Pitt Eats aims to reach 15% diverse spending annually as written into their contract. In FY23, Pitt Eats achieved 12.6% diverse spending, of which 8.4% was Black-owned.

To continue to advance the University of Pittsburgh’s plant-based and plant-forward options, Pitt was among the first signatories (and one of the first 3 universities worldwide) to join in the Coolfood Pledge in 2019. A global initiative led by the World Resources Institute (WRI), by signing the Cool Food Pledge, Pitt re-committed to cutting food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030 (originally a 2018 Pitt Sustainability Plan goal to “Serve meals that put plants at the center of the plate by decreasing the amount of animal-derived products sold by 25% by 2025 (from 2017 baseline).” As a result, Pitt has been working with WRI since 2019 to track its Cool Food performance.

For calendar year 2021, Pitt’s food-related GHG emissions were 15.5% below our 2017 baseline, with GHG emissions “per plate” (i.e., per 1,000 kcal) down 25% from our 2017 baseline. For CY21, Pitt performed better in GHG emissions per plate than both the average North American diet and other higher education Coolfood Pledge members.

Working with WRI to calculate food-related GHG emissions has also enabled Pitt to include food purchases in the University’s annual GHG inventory. Pitt’s FY22 GHG inventory revealed that food purchases accounted for 2.97% of the University’s GHG emissions (more than student commuting, fleet, and wastewater combined).
Learn more about Pitt’s Cool Food commitment: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/cool-food-pledge

All dining locations on campus provide multiple delicious and sustainable vegan dining options on campus.

Rooted is an entirely plant-based dining station in both residential dining locations on campus that serves vegetarian and vegan dishes with complete plant-based proteins at all meal periods. Besides Rooted, all retail and convenience stores offer multiple delicious vegan options with globally-inspired menus, including whole plant-based proteins and milk substitutes.

The above reflects 2018 Pitt Sustainability Plan’s Food Systems goal of serving meals that put plants at the center of the plate by decreasing the amount of animal-derived products sold by 25% by 2025 (from 2017 baseline) – in line with the Cool Food Pledge.

All vegan and vegetarian menu options are labeled as such on signage in dining halls.

In Fall 2022, Chartwells Higher Education partnered with HowGood to develop climate labeling for recipes to identify meals with lower relative social and environmental impacts. HowGood holds the world’s largest recipe sustainability database for food menus, and its partnership with Chartwells Higher Education is the first time they collaborate with higher education dining services, bringing unique sustainability decision-making opportunities for visitors across Chartwells Higher Education dining halls nationwide. Upon its initial launch in 2022, less than 1/3 of Chartwells’ recipes held HowGood scores. The following year, that number increased to nearly half (44%) of recipes menued nationwide, and it continues to expand. This exclusive partnership grants students and dining hall visitors a choice and the peace of mind knowing that any recipes with the HowGood label have been scored based on the following social and environmental impact metrics: greenhouse gas emissions, processing, water usage, soil health, land use, biodiversity, and animal welfare.

In 2014, University of Pittsburgh students from the Food Recovery Heroes student group (affiliated with the Food Recovery Network) began recovering food across campus. Since then, Pitt’s Dining Services has fully adopted food recovery as a standard practice in concert with student organization Food Recovery Heroes, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, the Pitt Pantry (on-campus food pantry), and 412 Food Rescue (a local food recovery organization).

Since 2015, Pitt students and dining staff have recovered and donated more than 158,000 pounds of food.

Beginning in November 2023, food-insecure students can pick up hot and cold recovered meals from climate-controlled food lockers alongside orders for groceries and takeout deliveries, providing a discrete and convenient option for students 24 hours a day. These lockers are operated by the Pitt Eats dining staff in partnership with the Food Recovery Heroes student organization who help package and fulfill at least 25 meals per day, Monday through Friday, and twice on Fridays.

Learn more about food lockers: https://www.pitt.edu/pittwire/features-articles/pitt-food-locker-delivery

The University of Pittsburgh implemented trayless dining in 2008. Trayless dining led to a dramatic reduction in food waste (estimated at 50% reduction).

Since then, chefs regularly evaluate how to reduce food waste, including introducing smaller plates, right-sized portions, and fewer buffet-style service options in line with other dining service improvements. These strategies and others have resulted in a reduction in post-consumer food waste as demonstrated by regular food waste audits in both residential dining halls.

Pitt’s food waste audit data is published on the Pitt Sustainability Dashboard: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/dashboard/

In 2014, University of Pittsburgh students from the Food Recovery Heroes student group (affiliated with the Food Recovery Network) began recovering food across campus. Since then, Pitt’s Dining Services has fully adopted food recovery as a standard practice in concert with student organization Food Recovery Heroes, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, the Pitt Pantry (on-campus food pantry), and 412 Food Rescue (a local food recovery organization).
Since 2015, Pitt students and dining staff have recovered and donated more than 158,000 pounds of food.

Beginning in November 2023, food-insecure students can pick up hot and cold recovered meals from climate-controlled food lockers alongside orders for groceries and takeout deliveries, providing a discrete and convenient option for students 24 hours a day. These lockers are operated by the Pitt Eats dining staff in partnership with the Food Recovery Heroes student organization who help package and fulfill at least 25 meals per day, Monday through Friday, and twice on Fridays.

Learn more about food lockers: https://www.pitt.edu/pittwire/features-articles/pitt-food-locker-delivery

In 2019, Pitt’s Food Recovery Heroes won a Zero Waste Excellence Award from the Pennsylvania Resources Council: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/pitt-food-recovery-heroes-receive-prc-zero-waste-excellence-award

In 2018, the University of Pittsburgh won a U.S. EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Food Recovery Award in the Data Driven category: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/university-of-pittsburgh-receives-accolades-from-epa-for-food-recovery-achievements/

Cooking oil is collected and recycled from all campus facilities. In 2022, Pitt Eats diverted 41,356 pounds of cooking oil from landfill.

The University of Pittsburgh's Student Office of Sustainability began collecting post-consumer compostables in 2015, diverting 0.6 tons from the landfill that year. Since 2015, the University's post-consumer composting program has grown substantially, now being offered in 12 buildings.

In 2019, we diverted 174.10 tons of compostables across campus locations. Due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, campus-wide composting was down in calendar year 2020 to 103.54 tons (92 tons of which was from post-consumer collection) and as of 2022 was rebounding to 71 tons.
Learn more about Pitt’s compostable collection: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/compost/

Pitt's composting progress is publicly tracked on our Pitt Sustainability Dashboard by month and building: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/dashboard

For dine in meals, reusable service ware is the only option for diners at our two residential dining halls. These locations serve roughly one-third of the meals consumed on campus each day.

Compostable to-go containers are available for 75% of dining options on campus and reusable containers from our Choose to Reuse program (using the OZZI system) are available at our residential dining locations.

Since the Choose to Reuse program started in Spring 2017, more than 14 tons of takeout waste has been avoided. Our 2018 Pitt Sustainability Plan goal is to serve 50% of to-go meals and beverages in reusable containers by 2025; this goal is written into the university’s 10-year dining contract with Chartwells Higher Ed.

Learn more about Pitt’s Choose to Reuse program: https://dineoncampus.com/pitt/sustainable-practices

Pitt’s BYO[Cup] program encourages customers to use reusable mugs in place of single-use disposable mugs. Customers pay $1.50 for coffee or tea in their reusable mug (limit 24oz) and receive a 25 cent discount on espresso drinks when using a reusable mug. An estimated 8% of sales for coffee or tea beverages are for reusable mugs although exact data was not available for this report.

Pitt's Sustainability Dashboard showcases campus-wide composting and food recovery progress: https://www.sustainable.pitt.edu/dashboard/