Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 66.18
Liaison Phil Valko
Submission Date March 2, 2018
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Washington University in St. Louis
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.89 / 6.00 Clara Steyer
Sustainability Coordinator
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on products that are third party verified under one or more recognized food and beverage sustainability standards or Local & Community-Based:
16.78

Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (expenditures on conventional animal products)? (If data is not available, respond “No”):
No

Percentage of total dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional animal products (meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, and dairy products that do NOT qualify in either the Third Party Verified or Local & Community-Based category):
---

A brief description of the sustainable food and beverage purchasing program, including how the sustainability impacts of products in specific categories are addressed (e.g. meat, poultry, fish/seafood, eggs, dairy, produce, tea/coffee):

Washington University's Strategic Plan for Sustainable Operations sets a series of goals for 8 key areas including food. For food, the goals include sourcing at least 22% local food by 2020 (by dollar spent) and 25% environmentally preferable, humane and fair food by 2020 (by dollar spent). These goals provide a framework for the University dining services to conduct sustainable food and beverage purchasing programs:

Bon Appetit (represents 86% of our dining providers in 2017) runs a number of sustainability-related dining programs, initiatives, and events including but not limited to: Farm to Fork Program, Low Carbon Diet Day, Eat Local Challenge, Sustainable Seafood Purchasing, Cash for Crops Program, purchasing grass-fed beef, and using certified cage-free, humanely raised shell eggs.

Aramark (represents 10% of our dining providers in 2017) is also committed to buying only cage-free eggs and most of their seafood is certified Monterey Bay or Marine Stewardship Council.

Catering St. Louis (2%) and Kaldi's (2%) manage a few small cafes/restaurants across campus that are particularly committed to sustainable practices, especially local sourcing and food waste reduction (Farmstead, Shell Cafe, etc.).

All of the University's dining services are sourcing the large majority of their coffees and teas from Kaldi's coffee. The local roaster runs several sustainability-related programs, including the "Relationship Coffees" that ensures that the coffee production exceeds fair trade practices (https://kaldiscoffee.com/pages/kaldis-relationship-coffee).


An inventory of the institution’s sustainable food and beverage purchases that includes for each product: the description/type; label, brand or producer; and the category in which it is being counted and/or a description of its sustainability attribute(s):
A brief description of the methodology used to conduct the inventory, including the timeframe and how representative samples accounted for seasonal variation (if applicable):

In the fall of 2017, the Office of Sustainability conducted a Progress Report to measure the University's progresses since the implementation of its Strategic Plan for Sustainable Operations in 2015. As part of the report, all 4 dining providers provided their food and beverage purchasing inventory for the fiscal year 2017 (July 1st - June 30), detailing the amounts of local foods and environmentally preferable, humane and fair foods.

The data collected for this progress report has been compiled into the AASHE STARS Food and Beverage inventory template. Some products have been reported as sustainable by our dining providers but we have judged the level of information provided was too low to be included in the attached inventory.

Aside from the progress report, the University has the goal of improving transparency and accountability in the university food system, with a review of the sustainability metrics quarterly.


Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
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Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
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Which of the following food service providers are present on campus and included in the total food and beverage expenditure figures?:
Present? Included?
Dining operations and catering services operated by the institution No No
Dining operations and catering services operated by a contractor Yes Yes
Student-run food/catering services No No
Franchises (e.g. national or global brands) Yes No
Convenience stores Yes Yes
Vending services Yes No
Concessions No No

A brief description of purchased food and beverage products that have other sustainability attributes not recognized above :

A large amount of the University's dining providers food and beverage purchase comes from local vendors and restaurants. They don't qualify as community-based as they are often importing a significant amount of their products from beyond the 250 mile radius limit. However, these businesses are still locally based.


Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
3.70

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Washington University contracts out its dining services to 4 different vendors: Bon Appetit, Aramark, Catering St. Louis and Kaldi's. The local and community-based and/or third party verified food percentage is the combination of all 4 vendors expenditures (food and beverage expenditures that are local and community-based and/or third party verified / total food and beverage expenditures).

This data represents spending from fiscal year 2017 (July 2016-June 2017).


Washington University contracts out its dining services to 4 different vendors: Bon Appetit, Aramark, Catering St. Louis and Kaldi's. The local and community-based and/or third party verified food percentage is the combination of all 4 vendors expenditures (food and beverage expenditures that are local and community-based and/or third party verified / total food and beverage expenditures).

This data represents spending from fiscal year 2017 (July 2016-June 2017).

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.