Response to Cavalier Daily Lead Editorial, Monday, September 20

Monday’s Cavalier Daily lead editorial focused on the growing importance of sourcing sustainable, particularly local, food in a large institutional setting – namely our Health System and our University overall. This lead editorial reflects a burgeoning interest in the sustainable food movement, which in and of itself is heartening to see: these issues are coming off the sidelines and into the mainstream student consciousness.

The article highlighted the recent partnership with area nonprofit the Local Food Hub and the University Health System, noting a new video launched on youtube and the Food Hub’s blog that describes that relationship in greater detail. The video is worth a watch, as it demonstrates the mutual benefits that come from the hospital sourcing local food and serving it to patients and visitors. These benefits include human health – customers eating fresher food tend to get more nutritional bang for the buck; environmental health – the small family farms with which the Food Hub partners grow their product in a sustainable fashion, shying away from pesticides and unnecessary antibiotics; and economic health – the farmers running these farms have an opportunity for increased market outlets by working under the umbrella of the Local Food Hub, thus making their operation more economically viable and ultimately maintaining rural land in agricultural use. The hospital is on the right track towards shaking the negative image of hospital food by buying local and supporting local farms in the process.

UVa Dining has also fully acknowledged these same benefits of purchasing sustainably produced food. In fact, sustainable purchasing has been on its agenda since the Green Dining group was initially formed in 2005, and took more concrete shape in 2007 after the group participated in a formative webinar on sustainable purchasing for higher education. This webinar, attended by students, Dining administrators, and community members, recommended that a University aiming to make sustainable purchasing part of its program first needed to create a set of sustainable purchasing priorities. Thus, the Green Dining Bull’s Eye was formed. U.Va. Dining’s highest sustainable purchasing priority is – and has been from the beginning – locally and seasonally grown, which Dining defines as grown within the Commonwealth. The remaining priorities are organically grown, humanely raised, and fairly traded.

Since those priorities were solidified three years ago UVa Dining and Green Dining have worked collaboratively to ensure that such purchasing is taking place and even increasing annually. Dining has forged partnerships with individual local operations like the Farm at Red Hill and Twin Oaks Tofu, and also, due to its size and the enormous number of students passing through its locations each day, larger distribution organizations like Cavalier Produce and the Local Food Hub. UVa Dining began conversations with the Food Hub just weeks after it first opened its doors last summer, and is currently purchasing approximately $3,000 worth of produce from them each week. Using the multiplier effect, it quickly becomes evident that Dining is having a significant effect on the Food Hub’s (and its partner producers’) operations. Executive Chef Bryan Kelly has confirmed that Dining is spending more with the Food Hub per week than any other vendor.

Aside from the day to day purchasing that is really just becoming the new standard for UVa Dining, we also host special events and special meals that specially showcase the bounty of ‘Virginia Grown’; examples include a Farm to Fork dinner last April on Earth day, featuring food sourced entirely from Relay Foods and the Local Food Hub, as well as a ‘Make it a Local Lunch’ theme station at Newcomb just last week, which again highlighted produce from the Food Hub.

There are certainly constraints on our sustainable purchasing program: seasonality not matching up to the academic schedule; distribution and logistical costs; demand far outpacing supply; and more, but UVa Dining is pleased with the progress it has made in just a few short years. With students expressing enthusiasm for more progress, we'll only improve from here.

More Local Food at Newcomb

'Tis the season... for fresh, sustainably produced food grown right here in Albemarle County! To celebrate the bounty, Newcomb is hosting another locally themed meal at lunch tomorrow from 11am to 2pm.

The produce is sourced from the Local Food Hub, a nonprofit focused on strengthening our local food supply by way of ensuring economic and environmental vitality for the area's small family farmers. The Food Hub itself works with close to 45 farmers, almost all of which are located less than 60 miles from Charlottesville. (The photo is of Ronnie Crickenburger, co-owner, with his wife, of Meadow Run Gardens in Fishersville, VA.)

The menu includes:

Sage & Apple Pork Loin
Fruited Demi Glace including cherries, currants, raisins and cranberry
Sautéed Smokehouse Pepper Green beans
Roasted Autumn Vegetables including Delicata, Butternut, Acorn, and Buttercup Squash with Yukon Potatoes
Warm Dinner Rolls with Wildflower Honey

Delicious! Hope to see you there.

(In case you'd like to pass this along, the event url is https://eventcal.itc.virginia.edu/eventcal/event/display?event_id=1284561085001.)

Local Spirit Tailgate tomorrow at Newcomb

Now that it's officially college football season and the height of the Virginia-grown harvest, come enjoy the best of both worlds at tomorrow's Local Spirit Tailgate for dinner at Newcomb between 5 and 8pm. The menu includes:

Chicken wings with spicy caramelized onion dipping sauce

Fried potato wedges with assorted toppings

Ravioli with a pancetta cream basic sauce

French bread pizza

Sauteed peaches and apples with vanilla ice cream and berry compote

Sounds perfect for a pre-game tailgate, and highlights some of the delicious produce currently available in central Virginia -- potatoes, peaches, apples, onions, and more!

Shot of local fruit display from last week's successful Taste of Dining event.

A reminder that tomorrow is also the first Green Dining meeting of the fall semester, taking place from 1-2pm in Hotel E (upstairs from the West Range Cafe). Please join if you're interested in getting involved with sustainable dining projects this year!

Taste of Dining tomorrow

Dining is holding its 2nd annual Taste of Dining event tomorrow -- you don't want to miss it! Taking place on the grassy lawn outside of O-Hill dining hall from 5-8pm, the event will feature signature dishes from every single dining location on Grounds (that includes concessions, catering, and the Law School cafe, among the ones that everyone is probably more used to visiting), along with live music and the chance to win some nifty prizes. There will also be an entire sustainability cluster, consisting of Green Dining, the UVa Student Garden, Campus Kitchens, Meat Free Monday and the UVa Green Challenge (a project sponsored by UVa Facilities Management). Come by, listen to some tunes, eat some food, and learn about UVa sustainability efforts and ways to get involved. Bring your own travel mug and/or water bottle if you remember!

Welcome Back!

And another school year begins: today is the first day of classes for the class of 2014. All the dining rooms and retail locations are up and running, including two brand new units: McLeod cafe over at the nursing school and a Starbucks on the ground floor of the South Lawn extension.


I spent several hours on the Lawn yesterday at the Student Activities Fair -- I suppose with the increasing class sizes, it actually is safe to say that it gets more crowded every year! -- speaking with students about our sustainable dining program, encouraging them to sign up for the Green Dining mailing list, and handing out a ton of reusable mug punch cards (bring your own reusable mug to on-Grounds cafes and after eight purchases you're eligible for two free coffee/tea/sodas). Green Dining meeting days haven't yet been determined, but I'll be sending out an email soon in order to determine the details via doodle poll. I'm looking forward to continuing last year's conversations.


Two major projects are being initiated this year. The first is an expansion on the already existing reusable to-go container program. For starters, this year the safety deposit is $5, instead of $7. When a student signs up to participate, she will get her two key tags (each of which is redeemable for a clean to-go container) and a frequent user punch card, modeled after the successful mug card. Card #1 allows a student to cash in for a free quesadilla from the Fine Arts Cafe after getting her meal in a reusable container ten times. When the student redeems the completely punched card for the quesadilla, the Fine Arts Cafe cashier will also hand her card #2, with a different reward waiting at the end of the card's completion. There are six cards in total, with the final completed card serving as a ticket for entry into a raffle to win a private, after hours sustainable dinner at the Fine Arts Cafe with ten invited friends.


The second project is Dining's Meat Free Monday campaign. This effort seeks to make vegetarian food more accessible in the dining halls by offering a vegan/vegetarian entree at one additional station (extra from the already 100% vegan/vegetarian station) during lunch and dinner on Mondays. There are a number of nutritional and environmental benefits to slightly reducing meat consumption, including reducing the risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer; and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, conserving our water resources, and reducing fossil fuel dependence needed for food production. Furthermore, the typical American diet contains more protein than needed on a day-to-day basis, so by choosing a meat-free alternative on Mondays, students generally need not fear not getting enough protein (or other nutrients).


Let Dining know what you think of these new programs!

ASU Sustainability Tour

I just spent several jam-packed days out at Arizona State University in Tempe, another Aramark-contracted school, taking tours, notes, and photos of the highlights of their own sustainable dining program. On the whole I am mightily impressed with what they've accomplished in the past two years -- especially as the desert isn't particularly well known for bountiful vegetable production! We spent the mojority of our time (conveniently always during the lunch hours) focused on Engrained Cafe, a retail space that was designed explicitly with sustainability in mind. This is evident in the wall hangings indicating Dining's sustainability commitment; in the sustainability-savvy staff; in the furnishings made from reclaimed materials; and, most markedly, in the ever-shifting menu with its heavy emphasis on local and sustainable ingredients. Those fresh items in the dishes were noticable: the food was delicious.

The cafe shortly after lunch rush

Some of Engrained's sustainability signage

Flatbread with local squash
Lunch was finished off with a lovely strawberry shortcake

I also made my way through several of ASU's residential dining rooms, including the one affiliated with the Barrett Honors College. All of Barrett's residents must purchase a meal plan specific to the college: this dining room serves specialty foods in the vein of gluten-free, vegetarian, and organic items. Other ASU students are welcome to eat at Barrett, but must pay a premium in addition to their regular meal swipe.

Another Sun Devil Dining location of note is their recently opened E2 retail location, an "element of Engrained." It's small, combining elements of a coffee-shop and take-out, and based on the same sustainability principles that define Engrained. E2 has its own character, but is obviously an effort to expand upon the success of ASU Dining's sustainability program as begun with Engrained.

Loved the Community Board (to the left of the menu) for students to leave messages, etc

Other trip highlights include a visit to and behind-the-scenes look at the LEED-certified Phoenix Convention Center (site of last November's Green Build conference); making the rounds at the downtown Phoenix farmers market (located next door to the Phoenix Public Market, an "Urban Grocery & Wine Bar" with an assortment of sandwiches from which we chose dinner); a lunch meeting with local farmers and distributors; and learning about ASU Dining's recent environmental outreach events and its successful employee sustainability training initiative. Lots of great ideas and efforts to bring back to Charlottesville and UVa!

UVa Sustainability Assessment

As UVa Today recently reported, the University is gearing up to re-assess its sustainability initiatives in several arenas across Grounds, including evaluating what has already been done as well as what's left to do (and how best to accomplish future goals). An exciting component of this ongoing review is that Dining has completed all of the goals established for its department back in 2006 -- this includes the establishment of a composting program, the organization of a sustainability committee (Green Dining), the removal of trays, and the recycling of used fryer oil among other points. It is worth pausing to recognize just how far we're come in these four years. Creating a paradigm shift within an institution is a tall order to say the least, but I'm proud that Dining has made such substantial progress. It's my hope that this success will give us momentum to continue in the right direction.

Over the coming weeks, sustainability representatives throughout UVa will be called on to complete the 2010 Sustainability Assessment in five categories: Water, Recycling and Waste, Dining Services, Governance and Culture, and Energy. This is sure to guide the University to significantly greater achievements by the time we reach 2014. To read more about the assessment process, see the recent UVa Today article as well as last night's NBC29 news story about our efforts.