Vanderbilt University
OP-8: Sustainable Dining

Vanderbilt hosts a local farmers’ market on campus. The market is part of the Nashville Farmers’ Market network and is held weekly during the season (June-October). The farmers’ market includes produce, meats, cheese, eggs, flowers, and other locally made goods. Many of the farms provide CSAs that can be picked up during the Vanderbilt Farmers’ Market and at occasional pop-up Farmer’s Market stands in Rand Hall.

Local Vendor Fair: Vanderbilt hosted a local vendor fair on the Commons that acted as a mini-market for local goods on the freshman campus.

Grins Vegetarian Cafe offers a regular menu and daily internationally-inspired specials that satisfies diners of all types. Kosher Certification provided by Rabbi Saul Strosberg from Congregation Sherith Israel.

Vanderbilt purchases from local providers whenever possible. Many of these providers are SMEs. Local providers include vendors like Christie Cookies. More information in Dining Purchasing inventory.
Estimated percentage of total food and beverage expenditures on products from disadvantaged businesses, social enterprises, and/or local SMEs

Campus Dining abides by the Menus of Change principles, which includes serving less red meat, less often. Dining approaches this principle in multiple ways, it offers vegetarian options at all meals, serves only burgers with 25% mushrooms or the impossible burger (100% plant based), and reduces the number of times beef is offered across campus.
Special low impact dining events include:
Campus Dining celebrated World Vegetarian Day by offering extended special vegetarian meals in all dining halls.
Insect Fest: Vanderbilt hosted a low impact event in October 2016 that introduced Vanderbilt diners to the practice of eating insects, which have a much lower impact than other animal products)
To-Go Awareness Day on Earth Day: Rand dining hall hosted an Earth Day event where no to-go containers were available to bring awareness to choosing hard china when dining in, reducing waste.
Vegan/Vegetarian dinners: Held twice each semester and features an all vegetarian menu with vegan options as well.
Scrape Your Plate Day: Vanderbilt Students in partnership with Vanderbilt Campus Dining held “Scrape Your Plate Day” to demonstrate the amount of food wasted from scraps left on diners plates in a dining center.

Vegetarian and vegan entrees are available at each meal at various Vanderbilt Dining locations. In November 2013, Vanderbilt Dining received an “A” on PETA2’s Vegan Report Card with a 94% student satisfaction rate. VU maintains the “A” rating in 2020. Vanderbilt Dining was recognized on this list for offering at least one vegan entrée at every meal, offering nondairy milk, labeling vegan entrees and desserts, including a vegan student on the dining advisory board, promoting vegan options and working with students to distribute vegan food. https://collegereportcard.peta.org/college/vanderbilt-

Campus Dining’s Eat the World Save the Earth program includes icons indicating specific categories that are included on all campus dining menus and at the service point. These icons include: organic, vegetarian, vegan, local, fair trade, and recycle (to-go containers/packaging). The icons make it easy for diners to find preferred food choices while they are in the dining are or looking at online menus.
Dining recently added signage for composting available in VU dining halls instructing diners where to put their waste so it is composted instead of ending up in a landfill. Dining has included signage for their switch to compostable to-go containers and utensils, as well as describing the impacts of removing plastic straws and plastic bags in the dining halls. There is significant signage around Campus Dining’s “no more plastic” initiative across campus.

Vanderbilt chefs and management team work very hard to ensure that there is as little waste as possible. This is accomplished by analyzing sales figures, by time of day, day of the week, month, previous trends, peak business hours, etc. Waste is eliminated on the front end by effectively managing our food purchases. The Fusion menu management system assists in creating smart menus that minimize waste before food is prepared. When there is leftover food, it is donated to Second Harvest Food Bank.
Vanderbilt Campus Dining uses LeanPath software to minimize food waste. LeanPath is used to track food waste and educate staff on how they can reduce waste and make more sustainable purchasing choices. With the Fusion and LeanPath systems, VU has the data it needs to make smart decisions on what meals to serve, how much to prepare, and how much waste results from those meals to reduce food waste from all stages of food planning, purchase, and preparation. Vanderbilt became a member of the Nashville Mayor’s Food Saver Challenge in 2018 and completes a follow-up survey twice per year to remain recognized and was recognized in the TN Get Food Smart program in 2019.

Vanderbilt has two main dining locations on campus. The Commons Center dining hall uses only hard china for meals. No takeaway options are available at that location.

Vanderbilt chefs and management team work very hard to ensure that there is as little waste as possible. This is accomplished by analyzing sales figures, by time of day, day of the week, month, previous trends, peak business hours, etc. Waste is eliminated on the front end by effectively managing our food purchases. When there is leftover food, it is donated to Second Harvest Food Bank. Students also have the opportunity to pick up a coin instead of one or more of their side items included in the meal plan. The coins collected are traded for canned food items which are donated to Second Harvest Food Bank. http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/04/share-a-side/

Since 2013, Vanderbilt has donated 2 truckloads of strawberries leftover from the annual Strawberries and Champagne commencement event to the Nashville zoo animals as well as rescued native wildlife at Walden’s Puddle.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sustainvu/2013/05/commencement-strawberries/

Leftover food is donated to Second Harvest Food Bank.

Vanderbilt installed an Organic Refuse Conversion Alternative (ORCA) machine to the main dining facility, Rand Hall, in 2015. The ORCA offers a method to digest food waste on-site and convert it to nutrient rich water within a twenty-four hour period. The ORCA has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of our kitchen, eliminating the need to store food waste and reducing much of the food waste that would otherwise go to the landfill.
Since 2013, Vanderbilt has donated 2 truckloads of strawberries leftover from the annual Strawberries and Champagne commencement event to the Nashville zoo animals as well as rescued native wildlife at Walden’s Puddle for use as animal food.

A composting program was implemented in 2017 on campus and has expanded to all of our campus dining locations in 2019. The program currently includes pre- and post-consumer collection for all dining prep locations, as well as post-consumer collection at the Commons Center and Rand dining halls. Food waste is collected and composted by the Compost Company, a local vendor.

A composting program was implemented in 2017 on campus and has expanded to all of our campus dining locations in 2019. The program currently includes pre- and post-consumer collection for all dining prep locations, as well as post-consumer collection at the Commons Center and Rand dining halls. In these dining halls, trash bins were replaced with compost bins to ensure compostable materials were being properly disposed of. Food waste is collected and composted by the Compost Company, a local vendor. Food waste collection is being added to front-of-house in the coming year.
A pilot program for residential food waste collection is being planned for when campus operations return to normal, post COVID-19 alterations, with the hope that the program can expand to all residential halls in the future.
Post-consumer compost bins have also been added to all dining tents across campus that have been implemented as COVID friendly alternatives to indoor dining.

Vanderbilt has two main dining locations on campus. The Commons Center dining hall uses only hard china for meals. No takeaway options are available at that location. The Rand dining hall utilizes hard china for eat-in meals and compostable service ware for takeaways.
Kissam center, one of Vanderbilt’s newest dining halls, added a dish room in 2019 to initiate conversion reusable dishware.
A pilot program for “rented” hard china for events was launched in 2019. Campus groups can check out the service ware for their event or meeting and return it to the dining hall to be washed at no charge.
All students were provided a reusable bamboo utensil set and a reusable bag to reduce the need for single use items. Dining has also provided each student with a refillable water bottle free of charge to encourage the elimination of single use beverage containers and waste.

The Commons Center dining hall uses only hard china for meals. No takeaway options are available at that location. Other dining halls utilize hard china for eat-in meals and compostable service ware for takeaways. All students were also provided with a reusable bamboo utensil set and a reusable bag to reduce the need for single use items.
A pilot program for reusable to-go containers was started in 2019 in one dining facility. The program is available to students free of charge.
All campus dining to-go food containers, utensils, cups, napkins, etc., are compostable across campus.

Campus dining has significantly reduced packaging from their dining halls and is working to reduce packaging from items in the markets. Campus dining has installed numerous rapid water bottle fillers (located in all market locations and additional dining locations) and has eliminated bottled water and soda bottles in markets. They have also provided each student with a refillable water bottle free of charge to encourage the elimination of single use beverage containers and waste.
Vanderbilt has an on-campus dining facility called Grins that serves vegetarian meals that are Kosher certified by Rabbi Saul Strosberg. Grins offers a regular menu and daily internationally-inspired specials that are available on the Vanderbilt meal plan as well for non-meal plan diners.
Vanderbilt also has a fully kosher food truck that was started by a Vanderbilt student. Aryeh’s Kitchen serves the Vanderbilt campus a Kosher menu with a southern twist. It is the only Kosher campus food truck in the U.S.
Vanderbilt also provides culturally diverse dining options daily in the main dining hall. Orto is a revolving, ever-evolving concept that explores the cuisines of the world. The menu at Orto is diverse, unique and will often change. The menu always includes healthy vegan and vegetarian options as well as robust, flavor-filled dishes.
Halal dining options are also identified with signs.
Vanderbilt only sources seafood according to the guidelines of the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch list to ensure that all seafood is sustainably sourced.