Pennsylvania State University
OP-6: Food and Beverage Purchasing

See file above.

See file above.

Penn State Food Services strives to purchase from local suppliers whenever possible. In 2009 guidelines were developed to encourage Pennsylvania companies to partner with the University. Our current standard for sustainable purchases includes those products processed within or grown or raised within the state of Pennsylvania. All products meeting our PA/Green standards are purchased on a competitive bid basis and, in addition to meeting our standards, are also our best pricing alternatives. We currently allow for a small cost premium for PA produce items on the UP campus, in order to encourage our produce suppliers to source PA grown products. We continue to put great efforts into increasing the number of PA vendors we purchase from directly, as well as the amount that we purchase from them. For 3rd party certified products, our requirements vary by product. For example, for egg products we require UEP or American humane certification. Most of our fair trade and organic purchases are centered on coffee, tea and retail item purchases. Our coffee program is exclusively Starbucks and Seattle's Best. Please see the following link for their standards: http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/sourcing/coffee

Our current local purchases are tracked using a combination of both manual tracking and custom software. Some purchases are tracked by vendor while others are on an item-by-item basis.

Housing and Food Services manages food purchases for a wide array of facilities at Penn State, including residential dining halls, retail dining, athletic facilities, branch campuses, etc. It was not feasible to separate values by facility type, so the percentages of local/ sustainable above are the same for both groups of facilities. Purchases were considered applicable if they met any of the following standards: 1. Product is grown in PA. (This qualifier is for fresh produce, and all other unprocessed foods.) 2. Raw materials in the finished product originate from PA. Minimum of 40% of the raw materials must originate from PA sources. 3. Products are processed and/or manufactured in PA. Products may be considered if they are processed or manufactured in a PA Facility. (Raw materials need not originate from PA sources for this qualifier.) [Note that the UP campus is centrally located in PA, so that any PA purchases meet the STARS stipulation that "local" is within 250 miles of campus.] 4. Third party verified to be ecologically sound, fair and/or humane. Values given above include only food purchases and do not include related non-food items such as compostable cutlery. Also note that some food items sold on campus are produced by on-campus facilities, including the Berkey Creamery (dairy products), The Penn State Bakery (baked goods) and the Penn State Mushroom Lab.