Overall Rating Platinum - expired
Overall Score 85.56
Liaison Tonie Miyamoto
Submission Date Feb. 7, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Colorado State University
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.93 / 6.00
"---" 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:
2

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”):
Yes

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):
17.70

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):
Housing & Dining Services works with our food distributor to purchase local and organic foods when possible, always working to balance cost for students with quality products. Our produce specifications require vendors to bid and supply local and organic produce when available and reasonably priced. The Lory Student Center purchases local and organic food items whenever possible for the student run Aspen Grille (20.15 percent local and organic throughout the year).

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):
STARS Report FY15 Food Purchasing Report_6.xls

A brief description of the methodology used to conduct the inventory, including the timeframe and how representative samples accounted for seasonal variation (if applicable):
These calculations were made by manually combing through the last year's purchases and calculating totals based on STARS guidelines.

If uploading output from the Real Food Calculator, provide:

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

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

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 Yes Yes
Dining operations and catering services operated by a contractor No No
Student-run food/catering services Yes Yes
Franchises (e.g. national or global brands) Yes No
Convenience stores Yes Yes
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 :
In column J of the attached OP-7 food and beverage purchasing spreadsheet CSU spent $993,718.19 on purchases that did not meet STARS 2.1 sustainability criteria but had sustainability attributes. The sustainability attributes these purchases met were from companies that were not publicly traded but locally owned (Mom and Pop stores) that either could not afford 3rd party verification, could not be grown locally, or could not determine the % by weight of locally grown and raised ingredients in their product. An example of this would be the Old Town Spice Shop in downtown Fort Collins. This company is locally owned but due to our shortened growing season in Colorado cannot grow the spices we need locally. Colorado Proud is a third party sustainability attribute coordinated by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. It is well-known throughout the state of Colorado but does not meet the STARS 2.1 criteria so we have recorded it here as "additional percentage".

Additional percentage of dining services food and beverage expenditures on conventional products with other sustainability attributes not recognized above (0-100) :
13.50

The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
http://www.housing.colostate.edu/green-dining

Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

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.