University of Colorado Boulder
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

Campus Dining Services (CDS) is currently updating our Sustainable Dining Initiatives (SDI) and is submitting the current plan. While the current plan has many measurables and goals that have been achieved or have an outdated target date, we are in the process of an updated list that will be incorporated into the updated SDI. The following list includes but is not limited to measurable and goals that have been achieved and/or will be incorporated into the new food sourcing section in addition to those listed in the current SDI: Develop Food Purchasing Guidebook with specific parameters for various food categories (Completion by May 2018). This tool will be utilized for internal and external purposes to both gauge where we stand as an organization in different food categories, provide prioritization to our needs, and guide external vendors looking to pitch their product to CDS on our desired food parameters. Procure certified humane, cage free eggs (This is the first category of the new food purchasing guidebook that has been reviewed and parameters set. Dairy, meat and produce will follow.) Annually increase the number of food products that meet Fair Trade as available. (2017: All coffee is fair trade) Procuring local source for items on the Environmental Working Group (EWG) Dirty Dozen list when in season. Procure organic source for the top two items on the EWG Dirty Dozen list. Annually procure organic sources of additional items on the Dirty Dozen list and extended list (2017: currently 51 items) as available and locally when in season. Procuring organic apples for all residential dining centers. Procuring Never-Ever beef in residential dining centers, which is hormone and antibiotic free as well as local to Colorado. Procuring chicken that is antibiotic free in residential dining centers. Procuring seafood that is wild caught and from American shores in all residential dining centers. Eliminated all red category fish on the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch. Established at the new Village Dining Center the Colorado Hearth where all dishes include local ingredients. Eliminated all products with unsustainably sourced palm oil.

The methodology used was to evaluate our purchasing data for the past 12 months (July 2016-June 2017). Purchasing information was exported from our Food Service Suite database where products are coded with sustainability traits when applicable.

As part of our assessment, we looked at the percentage of our inventory that did meet the Local aspect of being within mileage for the product but did not meet the Community Based aspect of company organization or revenues and determined that many products have an aspect of being sustainably sourced but are in the Conventional category. Overall, 264 products fall into the “Other Sustainability Attributes” noted in STARS. These include but are not limited to natural products, local products, non-GMO products and products with organic ingredients but not certified organic.

The methodology used was to evaluate our purchasing data for the past 12 months (July 2016-June 2017). Purchasing information was exported from our Food Service Suite database where products are coded with sustainability traits when applicable. 16.45% of expenditures are third-party verified ($1.6M or 12%) or local/ community-based ($0.6M or 4%). As part of our assessment, we looked at the percentage of our inventory that did meet the Local aspect of being within mileage for the product but did not meet the Community Based aspect of company organization or revenues and determined that many products have an aspect of being sustainably sourced but are in the Conventional category. Overall, 264 products fall into the “Other Sustainability Attributes” noted in STARS. These include but are not limited to natural products, local products, non-GMO products and products with organic ingredients but not certified organic. Campus Dining Services (CDS) is currently updating our Sustainable Dining Initiatives (SDI) and is submitting the current plan. While the current plan has many measurables and goals that have been achieved or have an outdated target date, we are in the process of an updated list that will be incorporated into the updated SDI. The following list includes but is not limited to measurable and goals that have been achieved and/or will be incorporated into the new food sourcing section in addition to those listed in the current SDI: Develop Food Purchasing Guidebook with specific parameters for various food categories (Completion by May 2018). This tool will be utilized for internal and external purposes to both gauge where we stand as an organization in different food categories, provide prioritization to our needs, and guide external vendors looking to pitch their product to CDS on our desired food parameters. Procure certified humane, cage free eggs (This is the first category of the new food purchasing guidebook that has been reviewed and parameters set. Dairy, meat and produce will follow.) Annually increase the number of food products that meet Fair Trade as available. (2017: All coffee is fair trade) Procuring local source for items on the Environmental Working Group (EWG) Dirty Dozen list when in season. Procure organic source for the top two items on the EWG Dirty Dozen list. Annually procure organic sources of additional items on the Dirty Dozen list and extended list (2017: currently 51 items) as available and locally when in season. Procuring organic apples for all residential dining centers. Procuring Never-Ever beef in residential dining centers, which is hormone and antibiotic free as well as local to Colorado. Procuring chicken that is antibiotic free in residential dining centers. Procuring seafood that is wild caught and from American shores in all residential dining centers. Eliminated all red category fish on the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch. Established at the new Village Dining Center the Colorado Hearth where all dishes include local ingredients. Eliminated all products with unsustainably sourced palm oil. Additional info from Part 2 above: Campus Dining Services acknowledges the attached STARS Food and Beverage Inventory, which shows that conventional animal product sourcing at 45%, plant based products at 34% and more sustainable animal products at 21%. Since our conventional animal product sourcing is more than 30% we do not claim any points in this category. As part of our assessment, we looked at the percentage of our inventory that did meet the Local aspect of being within mileage for the product but did not meet the Community Based aspect of company organization or revenues. We determined that many animal products have an aspect of sustainable sourcing but fall in the conventional animal product category. Examples include but are not limited to the following: Meadow Gold milk and milk products which are processed/made locally, however, the milk is supplied by Dairy Farmers of America who cannot verify that all farms contributing milk to the supply meet community based requirements. While a majority of the milk is sourced from farms in Colorado, this figure fluctuates throughout the year and is not consistent. Campus Dining Services acquired milk from Meadow Gold since our last submission as our previous vendor Robinson Dairy sold its business to Meadow Gold. Robinson Dairy was a local and community based vendor, which by volume of product accounted for 67% of our procurement meeting this category in the previous STARS submission. Current efforts include searching for a dairy vendor that meets local and community based AND can keep up with the procurement volumes needed. Chicken throughout all of residential dining operations is sourced natural and anti-biotic free. Local meats throughout residential dining operations that do not meet community based. Natural meats throughout operations…natural does not meet third party alone. Overall, animal products that did meet Third Party Verified or Local & Community Based accounted for 8% of our total food and beverage expenditures and 12% of total expenditures on animal products. Animal products with another sustainability attribute but not able to be included in the STARS categories account for an additional 24% of our animal product inventory. Additional info on conventional products purchased: Overall, products that did meet Third Party Verified and Local but not Community Based accounted for 47% of our total Third Party Verified expenditures and 4% of our total expenditures. We also found that 16% of products across our procurement inventory met the Local aspect of STARS. Products with another sustainability attribute but not able to be included in the STARS categories account for an additional 23% of our total product inventory. Campus Dining Services also operates its own bakery and commissary. Bakery recipes that included more than three ingredients accounted for 227,307 pounds of products produced. These include homemade breads, breakfast pastries and desserts. Commissary recipes that included more than three ingredients accounted for 457,674 pounds of products produced. These include soups, sauces, entrees and main courses. Finally yet importantly, Campus Dining Services also uses products from our gardens. At the time of this submittal, there is one garden that accounts for 125 pounds of fresh produce and herbs procured. Currently we chair the Food Grown on Campus Committee and have expanded our operations to include a second garden of wicking tubs producing lettuces, spinach, broccoli and herbs at one of our new dining facilities in the Sustainability, Energy, and Environment Complex (SEEC). We also have a 30,000 square foot Greenhouse in its construction phase at our newest dining center, the Village Center Dining and Community Commons. This Greenhouse will consist of over 120 aquaponic grow towers that will produce leafy greens for this dining facility year round.