Bon Appétit Management Company

Earlier this month, Macalester College became the tenth school in the country — and the second Bon Appétit education client — to sign a Real Food Campus Commitment. The commitment, which was developed by the student-led nonprofit group Real Food Challenge, is a pledge that commits school administrators to formally prioritizing real food* through increasing procurement of such food as well as community engagement and transparency around food issues.

Redlands Conservancy’s Emerald Necklace Program is an ambitious project, long in the works, that will preserve open space as well as Redland’s agricultural heritage. The program kicked off with a celebratory event catered by Bon Appétit at University of Redlands in Redlands, CA.

Missouri was the first stop in the 10-state Young Farmers Screening Series for American Meat, a documentary that looks evenhandedly at both the industrial and the pastoral sides of the U.S. meat system. Bon Appétit at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, kicked off the screening with a grass-fed beef barbecue for 325 attendees, who stayed for a panel discussion and special announcement.

Food Day is an annual nationwide celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainable food, and a movement to create more of it. This Thursday, October 24, Bon Appétit locations all across America will proudly celebrate Food Day and its five principles. We’re encouraging our guests to get involved by growing some of their own food, and if they’re students, encouraging them to join Campus Farmers!

When farmer Brenton Johnson first started out, his “farm” was literally his backyard in Austin, TX. In less than three years, he expanded out of his backyard and grew to serve over 1,000 neighbors through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

Organized by Midwest Fellow S.K. Piper and students at Carleton, St. Olaf, and Macalester Colleges, the seven-farm bike tour and closing party was completely free for participants, funded by in-kind donations and community grants that Piper helped the student organizers secure, with the food cost being covered by the Bon Appétit teams at the three schools.

Each quarter, Bon Appétit at SAP in Palo Alto,CA, offers a complimentary cooking class led by Café Three Chef/Manager Robert Perez. Past hands on courses have included pozole, fresh salsas, aguas frescas, and Asian spring rolls.

Strong local and regional food systems can lead to strong local economies and opportunities for people who are often left behind by traditional economic development. But it takes a while to build these systems. Bon Appétit was proud to cater a recent breakfast fundraiser for the Grow a Farmer Fund at Carleton College in Northfield, MN, which raised $4,270 for Latino farmers who want to raise free-range chickens in rural Minnesota.

Americans eat a lot of seafood. We rank third in global seafood consumption, behind China and Japan, and we spend billions of dollars every year on seafood. But for most Americans, the knowledge of what we’re eating ends with what’s printed on our menu. Most people have little idea about the complex route their fish has taken from the boat to their plate. Oceana recently released a report comparing the traceability systems in the beef and produce industries in the United States to the seafood industry. So how did they stack up?