| Overall Rating | Silver - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 47.23 |
| Liaison | Keaton Schrank |
| Submission Date | Aug. 15, 2019 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
Westminster University - Utah
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
0.42 / 6.00 |
Kerry
Case Environmental Director Environmental Center |
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:
Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (expenditures on conventional animal products)? (If data is not available, respond “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):
Bon Appetit has a company-wide Farm to Fork program. Bon Appetit describes the program as follows:
"A groundbreaking, companywide initiative requiring our chefs to buy at least 20% of their ingredients from small farmers, ranchers, fishermen, and food producers within 150 miles of their kitchens."
The program criteria is very stringent, and qualifying operations are described as follows:
- Small farms, orchards, mills growing plant-based products that are owner-operated, within 150 miles or less of the Bon Appetit chapter, and have annual sales volume of $5 million or less.
- Small producers of meat, poultry, eggs, dairy and cheese that are owner-operated, within 150 miles or less of the Bon Appetit chapter, and have annual sales volume of $5 million or less.
- Mid-size producers of meat, poultry, eggs, dairy and cheese that are owner-operated, within 500 miles or less of the Bon Appetit chapter, and have a sales volume that is less than 1% of industry leaders’ sales volume per species cultivated. Mid-size operations are also required to meet stringent third-party humane certifications from Humane Farm Animal Care, Animal Welfare Approved, Global Animal Partnership, or Food Alliance.
Note: This program is really well-designed. The criteria are stringent and align well with current best practices for large scale food purchasing. However, we have seen limited impact by the program at Westminster. The implementation of the program has been lacking at Westminster as only one product is consistently sold that meets Bon Appetit's Farm to Fork criteria.
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):
Bon Appetit provided an overview of monetary purchasing totals for the fiscal year of July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017. This list was broken down into the following categories:
- United Natural Foods (snacks and specialty items)
- Muir Copper Canyon (produce)
- Wasatch Meats
- Dean Foods (dairy)
- Pepsi/Tropicana (beverages)
- Bakemark/Beni/AU (baked goods)
- Pacific Seafood
- Coremark (snack items)
- Sysco (general food distributor)
- Rimini (coffee)
A student researcher reached out to individual food providers on the above list to gather more information about specific products, and compiled an inventory of the items that were third-party verified or local and community-based.
The inventory is incomplete due to data limitations. Although it is possible that some products from from Sysco, Muir Copper Canyon, and Pacific Seafood meet the required criteria, complete purchasing data with the necessary information about third party verification could not be obtained from these providers. Thus, the reported percentage of qualifying products in Part I of this credit may be slightly lower than accurate.
Data limitations also precluded the student researcher from pursuing Part 2 of this credit.
Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
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) | No | No |
| Convenience stores | No | No |
| Vending services | Yes | No |
| Concessions | Yes | No |
A brief description of purchased food and beverage products that have other sustainability attributes not recognized above :
Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
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:
Vending services are a small enough total that we opted to not include it due to their negligible impact on our total footprint.
Vending services are a small enough total that we opted to not include it due to their negligible impact on our total footprint.
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.