Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 60.54
Liaison Sarah Fortner
Submission Date March 6, 2020
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Carleton College
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.48 / 6.00 Alexandra Miller
Sustainability Program Coordinator
Energy and Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

This credit requires:

  • A completed STARS Food and Beverage Purchasing Inventory
  • An itemized inventory based on output from the Real Food Calculator, or
  • An alternative inventory that includes for each product:
    • Product vendor
    • Product label/brand
    • Product description
    • The category in which the product qualifies (Third Party Verified or Local & Community Based)
    • Information justifying inclusion: the standards met if the product is third party verified; ownership, size, distance, production methods for Local & Community Based products 

Part 1

Third Party Verified and Community Based Products

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:
9

Part 2

Animal Products 

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):
---

Food and Beverage Purchasing Inventory

Required if pursuing either part of the credit:

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):
Sustainability is at the heart of the food and beverage program managed by Bon Appetit at Carleton College. We have a goal to source at least 20% of ingredients, by dollar, from small, local, owner-operated farmers and artisans; prioritize plant-based proteins in the café and offer vegetarian options at every meal; cook from scratch, including stocks, sauces, and soups; prevent and minimize waste in a number of ways; purchase only cage-free and third party certified eggs, pork raised without the use of gestation crates, and ground beef from Certified Humane operations or small, local farmers. Our seafood is never airfreighted, and is purchased in accordance with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Guidelines for Sustainability, and we’ve been at the forefront of the right for farmworkers rights – including hosting an annual National Farmworker Awareness Week on campus. Last but not least, we communicate with guests through menus in the cafes and through our guest facing website (www.cafebonappetit.com) in order to share our sustainability related policies, the local farms we source from and their distance from the campus, and menu items with COR icons that relay information related to each of these standards.

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 has a "Farm to Fork" (F2F)Program. Local vendors, within 150 miles of each cafe are able to go through a screening process with the company to become F2F vendors. All purchases from these F2F vendors are closely tracked, reports for these purchases are included in monthly reports for each location. Carleton College also has students active in the Real Food Calculator. They work closely with the on-campus food service provider, Bon Appetit, to complete an annual inventory of "real food" (local, humane, fair trade and ecologically sound) using the Real food Calculator tool. Once completed the results of the calculator are shared with the campus and used by students and Bon Appetit staff to inform future purchasing efforts.

If uploading output from the Real Food Calculator, provide:

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food A (0-100):
9

Percentage of total dining services expenditures on Real Food B (0-100):
13

Required if pursuing either part of the credit:

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

Optional Fields 

A brief description of purchased food and beverage products that have other sustainability attributes not recognized above :
Other areas of the Real Food Challenge breakdown: 5% Humane 5% Fair 11% Ecologically Sound

Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
26

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:
Bon Appetit numbers vary slightly from the Real Food Calculator numbers that our student employees calculated. The Real Food numbers are based on two months of data then averaged. The Bon Appetit information is accurate for the total year. The Real Food Calculator report is here: https://drive.google.com/a/carleton.edu/file/d/1yDXG3rsLv7FdmB68PaFeJnLeOEdViZGx/view?usp=sharing

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.