University of Washington, Seattle
OP-7: Food and Beverage Purchasing

We continue to partner with local artisans and food and beverage providers to source local, natural and organic products, with over 30 percent of our purchases made within 250 miles of campus. Our local purchases have a sustainability story behind each relationship we build. Whether it be related to maintaining and growing sustainable food production and processing in our region, partnering and pooling our resources and expertise to help drive sustainable business practices, or collaborating with our students to support the growing desire for sustainable dining practices on college campuses across the country, our goal is to provide a food system for the UW community that is sustainable. For a few years now, we have purchased produce grown on campus by the UW Farm in our grocery store, full service restaurant and dining locations around campus. We continue to provide feedback to the farm on the types of produce we would like to see for the upcoming years’ harvest so that the farm could put in a seed order for the spring planting season. The chefs from various food service operation on campus gave their input on what they would like to have grown and used in their operations. We have a great relationship with Food Lifeline, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending hunger in Western Washington, to pick up food items to be used in the local community to feed the hungry. We have three major food service operations that Food Lifeline picks up for and both support community shelters in the University neighborhoods.

Initially we requested detailed reports from all of our vendors. After compiling the information, we reviewed it against our own data collection to make sure they were similar. From there we looked into any gaps we had as far as pricing that may have changed with the market, and also averages from previous years, if there was no change to the purchasing practices.

The UW has strong Supplier Diversity and Business Diversity Program (BDP) efforts in place focused on both federal and state-level spending. In addition, the UW has a strong student club focused on these efforts as well. Buying from certified, local women-, minority-, and veteran owned business is a key goal of these programs. Catering for events is one category of spend that has successfully increased purchases from such vendors, many of which often use local and sustainable products. More on these programs at the links below: https://finance.uw.edu/ps/supplier-diversity https://bdp.uw.edu/ https://www.uwsupplierdiversity.com/our-projects/

We utilize the NACUFS Sustainability Guide and the NACUFS Professional Practices Manual, Chapter 16 Sustainability to help drive Sustainable Food Systems locally, regionally and nationally. For the seventh consecutive year, the UW made The Princeton Review's Green College Honor Roll, in part from efforts to serve organic, local and fair-trade food on campus. More than half of our food is produced within 250 miles of campus. UW Dining was recognized nationally as a top performer in the 2017 Sustainable Campus Index report. Continuous outreach and education will always be a focus for our department. We have consistently presented to the campus community on our Sustainable Food System as well as our waste management program and are part of the academic curriculum in the School of the Environment. We have sponsored Campus Sustainability Fund projects on farming on campus; producing biodiesel fuel and using it on campus from our used cooking oil; and compost behavior and food studies aimed at diverting waste. In the past, we worked with Starbucks and Coke to develop compostable product lines.