Bowdoin College
OP-6: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Vegetables and herbs from Bowdoin's organic garden include head lettuce, arugula, Swiss chard, kale, carrots, cucumbers, onions, pac choi, radishes, scallions, shallots, turnips, tomatoes, summer squash, pumpkins, peppers. Local fruits and vegetables purchased from local farms including potatoes, carrots, beets, cabbage, parsnips, zucchini, lettuces, tomatoes, apples, blueberries, cranberries,and kelp. Other local purchases include local beef for ground beef, MSC-certified fish, GMRI under-utilized local fish, local lobsters, mussels and clams, as well as local oats, wheat flour, honey, maple syrup, tofu, milk products, and soft and hard cheeses.

Bowdoin Dining Service operates two dining halls, three cash operations, and provides campus catering service. Our purchasing staff includes a Sourcing and Menu Manager and three purchasing assistants who actively seek out local products and vendors. Our prime food vendor is PFG-Northcenter. Their local food supply chain has increased dramatically year over year but we also utilize many local vendors for items like fresh vegetables, milk products, bread, beef, fish and shellfish. We have had a focus on local purchasing since 2002 when we became a charter member of Farm Fresh Connections, a not-for-profit that coordinated the sale of food from local farms to institutions. In 2005, we started our campus organic garden. Our purchasing policies seek to promote a sustainable economy in Maine and New England by spending our considerable food budget locally for goods and services whenever possible. The College purchases fresh local vegetables in season and contracts for off-season deliveries. We buy tomatoes year-round from a local commercial greenhouse operation and our apples from a local orchard. Our in-house meat shop uses Maine beef for all ground beef. All our fish is MSC-certified or local. We are part of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute's (GMRI) responsibly harvested seafood branding program and were the first institution to partner with them on the “Out of the Blue” underutilized seafood promotion. Our dining hall menus have a strong emphasis on local cuisine. After four years at Bowdoin, students have eaten their share of creamy fish chowder, local mussels, lobsters, tons of root vegetables, Maine potatoes, baked beans, anadama bread, blueberry buckle, and molasses hermits. Traditional recipes are the outcome of the local “terroir” and tie the food to the culture. The Bowdoin Organic Garden continues to be a campus focal point where sustainability, academics and agriculture meet. It is part of our garden manager’s job to create connections and engage students and faculty in the many facets of growing food. Dining Services is responsible for the oversight, coordination and continuity of the garden and utilizes the vegetables, herbs and flowers in our operations, as well as making weekly seasonal donations to the local hunger prevention program. We are committed to increasing food utilization and reducing food waste through an integrated approach using food management software, intensive staff training, and marketing of waste reduction to students. We are working with a consulting group to identify areas of improvement and help us make programming changes to meet our goals.

Our vendors are classified as local if within 250 miles of the campus. Each year, the Sourcing Manager runs reports from our financial software (A/P) for our vendors to determine purchased amounts per vendor. Our prime vendor also classifies their vendors using the same criteria and sends a report outlining sales per vendor.