Bowdoin College
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Brunswick, our community, has two very robust famers' markets that provide local produce, meat, fish, baked goods, and other prepared products several days a week, year-round. It is not the College's intention to compete with these successful operations. The Bowdoin Organic Garden does hold public sales several times over the summer and early fall, mostly at times of excess harvest.

Bowdoin's local purchasing is elemental in dining's sustainability as it helps to reduce the miles traveled by food products and keeps money in the local economy. Dining currently strives to purchase at least 20 percent of products from local businesses, many of which are SMEs.

Bowdoin Dining has collaborated with several student groups to educate diners about carbon footprints related to our menu items. Students calculated carbon footprints and experimented to determine the most effective way to influence dining decisions based on this information. These exercises have been very positive for both our culinary staff and customers.

At Bowdoin, we don't necessarily identify a vegan dining program. Because dining is such an important component of the residential life at the College, we want our food to reflect the preferences of all our students. Rather than limit the appeal of our plant-forward offerings to a subset, we market their health benefits and deliciousness to everyone. At a minimum, in each dining hall, during each meal period, our menu standards require that one vegan entrée be available, in addition to a vegan protein and cooked vegetables. At the salad stations, there is an array of composed salads, in addition to rotating fresh-cut vegetables and fruits, plain grains, legumes, and house-made vegan dressings. Because our dining halls are traditional AYCTE locations and we continue to feature scratch cooking, our chefs are continually coming up with wonderful recipes to meet the needs of our customers. Some of our most popular healthy items are: chick pea curry with roasted cauliflower, black bean and sweet potato patties, maple baked butternut squash with cranberries, homemade kimchee, house pickled beets, curried tofu “egg” salad, and masoor dal. Every lunch we offer a deli “special,” which is a grilled sandwich or wrap, and we prepare a vegan version of every deli special. Our students LOVE cauliflower and Brussels sprouts in any form! We bake fresh bread daily for the dining halls, most of which are vegan. House-baked vegan cookies and desserts are available including rotating flavors of chia pudding. We produce our own, very popular vegan granola. Several varieties of vegan milk, including rice, oat, soy, and almond, are always available, as well as freshly ground peanut butter, dried fruit, wheat germ, soy nuts, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds, and nutritional yeast. We put a lot of effort into ensuring that our vegan items have broad appeal to all members of the campus community.

In both dining halls, there are displays on bulletin boards with educational materials about Bowdoin's Organic Garden, local food options, and sustainability in dining. This is in addition to labeling of foods in the dining halls as vegetarian, vegan, from the Bowdoin Organic Garden, locally sourced or certified MSC, organic, or other.

Bowdoin dining uses a menu management software program to track the production and usage of menu items so as not to prepare more than is expected to be used at each meal or event.

One of our dining halls implemented trayless dining in 2019. Bowdoin Dining encourages trayless dining by marketing its positive effects. We work with sustainable student groups who set up tables in the dining halls to influence peer behavior.

Bowdoin College Dining helps support Midcoast Hunger Prevention with food and beverage donations. MCHPP is a 501-c3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to offer dignity and empowerment by providing all members of our community with access to healthy food.

Bowdoin Dining Service's used cooking oil is collected and picked up by a local company that makes it into biodiesel and soap products.

Pre- and post-consumer waste from the dining halls is picked up by a Portland, Maine-based company, Agri-Cycle.

Pre- and post- consumer waste from the dining halls is picked up by a Portland, Maine-based company, Agri-Cycle.

The dining halls do not provide disposable dishware, with the exception of an 8-oz. compostable paper coffee cup. All other dishware is ceramic, glass, or hard plastic. We use metal silverware. All dishware is washed and reused for those who eat in the dining hall. Additionally, Bowdoin Dining also provides students with a welcome pack during Orientation that contains a metal teaspoon, soupspoon, knife, fork, and straw with a cleaning brush to help promote sustainable dining in their dorm rooms.

While all of Bowdoin's to-go packaging is now compostable, Bowdoin offers incentives to utilize reusable mugs, lunch bags, and take out eco-containers.

Bowdoin's two largest catering events of the year (1500 and 4000 people, respectably), are completely composted by Agri-Cycle. Finally, other programs like getting rid of bottled water at the bag lunch station and offering compost bins around campus allow students and employees to further compost take-out containers and service ware.

There is a rewards system for the express lunch option, cafe, and grill. For the express option, bringing a reusable bag (instead of using a paper bag each time) is rewarded with a stamp. Once ten stamps are collected, they can be exchanged for a $1 coupon for on-campus dining options. At the cafe, drink rates are reduced if you bring your own mug, and "in-house" drinks (in-dining cups that are then washed and reused) are also discounted and available for free refills of coffee.

Our organic gardener hosts events at the garden and gives numerous presentations during the course of the year that teach and inform students about agriculture and the local growing community. Our sourcing manager is involved with several local foods organizations that bring stakeholders together to discuss common issues and seek creative solutions. Dining Services works with faculty members across multiple disciplines (biology, sociology, economics, environmental studies, and visual arts) each semester to help illustrate sustainability issues.

The dining department strongly emphasizes healthy eating among our own employees. Our nutritionist works one on one with them to encourage diet changes that will have a positive impact on their health. We have seen a marked increase in fresh vegetable consumption among staff since our composed salad program. Bowdoin has made a campus-wide commitment to increasing diversity and supporting inclusion, which our department has implemented in the form of making food with authentic ingredients and spices from other cultures.