University of Wisconsin-River Falls
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Compass Group USA proudly announces its new Sustainability Platform which advances its efforts to better protect and manage our food sources and the people who harvest and grow those sources. Compass Group USA is a family of companies providing food and support services across all 50 states and in every setting – from cultural arts centers to oil rigs, school dining to corporate cafes, hospitals to sports arenas, and vending to the entertainment industry’s most iconic events. In their new Sustainability Platform Compass Group commits to: • Purchase a minimum of 20% of its produce and other products from local and regional sources • Increase the purchase of animal proteins from suppliers who promote humane welfare of farm animals • Source foods that are produced with minimal use or free of chemicals and antibiotics • Offer USDA Organic label items as first choice options on menus when available • Serve only wild caught and aquaculture seafood from environmentally responsible sources or those on a path towards improvement • Partner with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to foster better pay and conditions to CIW harvesters • Reduce the purchases of red meat by 30% based on 2014 volumes • Reduce the Eco-Foodprint of our foodservice operations in food, energy, water and landfill waste “Our 2015 Sustainability Platform builds upon our commitment to a transparent food chain and sourcing foods that are responsibly produced,” said Julia Jordan, Compass Group USA’s director of sustainability initiatives. “As one of the largest providers of foodservices in the country, we are proud to help shape a sustainable path for the foodservice industry.” Our sustainability platform is a key component of Compass Group USA’s Envision 2020 philosophy.

Items sourced from local farm include local sausage products produced on campus, local honey harvested and bottled on campus, and local ice cream and cheese produced on campus. Falcon foods provides cheese, ice cream, and brats for retail and residential dining. https://www.uwrf.edu/ANFS/FalconFoods/

Local farmers market is hosted twice annually on campus to expose and offer students and faculty the opportunity to purchase local produce, wild rice, cheeses, dairy, and honey that are grown/produced in this area. The Student Alliance for Local and Sustainable Agriculture student organization also hosted an event where they gave out free produce from the campus organic garden.

With special dietary needs in mind, vegan and vegetarian menu items are available in Riverside Commons. These menu items include but are not limited to the following: soymilk varieties, tofu, hummus, rice, potatoes, soup varieties, select salad bar toppings and dressing, and fresh fruit and vegetables. In addition, we have a program designed to help identify vegan and vegetarian options in our cafeteria using icons on our menus.

Featured Grain Bowls on Fridays, Taco Tuesdays, Baked Potato Bars – each week features one –two days of low impact featured menus.

One week in spring semester that is focused on "love food, not waste". Wasted food in cafeteria is weighed and students can see a representation of how much food is wasted by spilling or overfilling of plates. Goal will be set to reduce this amount and progress is shared with guests. Additionally, new menu innovation is focusing on vegetables as center of the plate items to reduce overall footprint of food production.

There is signage throughout dining hall to educate guests on Fair Food programs, Monteray Bay Aquarian Seafood Watch, local products, and Imperfectly Delicious Product.

Marketing team collaborates with college sustainability club to support Love Food, Not Waste program. Through this effort, multiple food waste audits are conducted each semester.

Menus of Change is a national, multi-year educational project developed by The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and Harvard School of Public Health, Department of Nutrition that was launched in 2012. The goal of the initiative was to bring together representatives from all areas of foodservice – including everyone from chefs and nutrition and environmental scientists to farm and fisheries experts to foodservice executives and policy makers. It was this collaboration that inspired and informed the Menus of Change Principles. Compass Group has been involved with Menus of Change since its inception and is a founding member of the Menus of Change Sustainability Leadership Business Council. Beginning immediately, Compass Group has committed to adopting four key initiatives based on the Menus of Change Principles across its foodservice business portfolio to support the industry transformation that is necessary to ensure a sustainable future. These four new Compass initiatives, building on the existing commitments that Compass has already made towards addressing health and sustainability imperatives, include: 1) Increasing customers’ access to vegetables and fruits by focusing on globally inspired, largely plant based cooking. 2) Including recipes and concepts where meat plays more of a supporting role, reducing red meat portion sizes and offerings, and leveraging strategies from seasonal and local flavors, vegetable proteins, and global cuisines. 3) Increasing our offerings of grain options that are at least more than 50% whole grain. 4) Employing conscious menuing and messaging that promotes health and sustainability through inspiring menus, customer interaction at the chef’s table and telling the story about great food. “Not only is this the right thing to do for a sustainable future, it’s also a progressive wellness benefit for our clients and a significant menu expansion for our customers,” says Rick Post, Compass Group’s Chief Operations Officer. “Compass Group serves seven million meals a day and adopting this program may benefit clients by improving healthy lifestyle choices of their associates and the health of the planet.” Each week there are “superfood” recipes featured that highlight healthy eating options with rich superfoods such as cranberries, tomatoes, citrus, etc. Also, diverse ethnic dishes are featured through premium nights in which custom menus are created to focus on certain ethnic foods.

Compass Group USA announces a commitment to reduce 25% of its food waste by 2020 from a 2016 baseline. This commitment is made in an effort to combat the negative environmental, social, and financial effects of food waste. According to The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) an estimated 40% of food in the U.S. goes uneaten. In partnership with Celebrity Chef Tom Colicchio and Unilever, Compass has launched a dynamic platform to raise awareness and promote food waste solutions. On April 28, 2017 Compass Group cafés across the country will celebrate the first National Stop Food Waste Day as part of Earth Month showcasing: • Imperfectly Delicious Produce (IDP) – two million pounds of rescued produce nationwide • Waste Not – an internal tracking tool to measure waste • Save the Food marketing and root-to-stem recipes “Compass says ‘enough is enough.’ We serve 9.4 million meals a day and are in a position to make some real change,” says Amy Keister, VP of Consumer Engagement. “Let’s take our national love affair with food and work together to find a solution to stop food waste!”Building off Compass’ Envision2020 strategy, the food waste reduction plan Building off Compass’ Envision2020 strategy, the food waste reduction plan provides training and tools to reduce surplus at the source, food recovery partnerships to donate excess to the community, and marketing materials to educate the public on ways to save at home. For more information about Stop Food Waste Day, participating cafés, and scheduling coverage of events, visit www.stopfoodwasteday.com.

We do not have trays available for service. We have an AYCTE facility, but students need to fill their plate and come back if needed instead of loading a tray full of food. There are various sizes of plates and bowls located throughout the dining hall, so students can take as much or as little as their care to eat. Without trays, the guests can go back and take a clean dish if additional food is desired, but at the same time limit to just want they want to eat, and limit potential waste. This was implemented in 2008 and resulted in significantly less food waste.

Any leftover food that can be re-served is donated to local food bank or through campus ministries programs.

The Foodwaste Reduction System is fully customizable, designed to meet the unique needs of any facility from restaurants to hospitals, schools and other institutions. This system can process all organics including: produce, fruits, cut flowers, meat, fat trimmings, paper napkins, coffee grounds, spoiled milk, deli products and some soft plastics reducing organic waste volume by as much as 95 percent. Remaining product after drying will be composted by the University. Used cooking oil is stored and then picked up in bulk to be converted into fuel.

Trim Trax is used to track all pre-consumer waste by measuring and tracking all food waste due to production. Food scraps are measured in bins prior to disposing, and tracked weekly to find areas that may indicated poor production standards or poor yields, in order to increase efficiencies and reduce waste.

A food hydration system is used in the warewashing room. Post-consumer food waste is dehydrated down to food flakes. The dehydrated food flakes are then mixed into the campus organic compost pile and used in flower beds and gardens on campus.

We use stainless steel utensils to serve with and the students use stainless steel utensils to eat with. We wash according to health code and resuse continually.

The Freddy 2GO Program allows meal plan participants to take meals "to go" from Riverside Commons. The reusable 2GO container will provide an option for those students with busy schedules who don't have the time between classes, work or other commitments to sit down to eat in the University Center. By providing a non-disposable option, University Dining Services and Chartwells continue to pursue our commitment to improving our sustainability initiatives.

Discounts given in retail outlets for refills on coffee products. Freddy to Go program also features re-usable cup for refills as needed.

Foodbuy embraces both the challenges and opportunities of sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives in the foodservice supply chain. We expect to see continuous improvement from all of our suppliers, and we reward suppliers who excel, particularly in these areas: Human Wellness, Animal Welfare, Environmental Protection, and Social and Economic Justice. Act to reduce the Eco-Foodprint of our foodservice operations • Provide expert support and tools to assist managers and clients on developing strategies to reduce energy, water and waste • Continue to reduce CO2e emissions in our operations by implementing the Carbon Foodprint™ Toolkit • Provide expert enterprise level support to clients and operators in accomplishing reduction objectives • Deliver verifiable strategic plans and reports that allow clients to make public statements on CO2e and other reductions. • Invest in continuous technology improvement of the Carbon Foodprint Toolkit. • Foster responsible staff behavior/practices in 100% of units through our Love Food Not Waste Campaign • Source Imperfectly Delicious Produce from regional and national growers to help minimize agricultural landfill waste • Engage our supply chain to reduce volume of primary and secondary packaging and increase packaging that can be recycled, composted or reused • Operations participating in the Carbon Foodprint Toolkit program will reduce pounds of CO2e emissions per guest by 20%, compared with 2014 basis (annual average: 6.92 lbs./guest) • Operations participating in the Carbon Foodprint Toolkit program will reduce water use in gallons per guest by 20% compared with 2014 basis (annual average: 3.93 gal/guest) • Beef and other red meat purchases will be reduced by 30% compared to our 2014 baseline (18.5 million lbs