Macalester College Signs Expanded Real Food Campus Commitment

Written by Sarah Piper on October 29, 2012in Education, Events, Featured - 0 Comments

Macalester student Abbie Shain and Bon Appétit General Manager Kimberly Driesch announce the commitment

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. The Real Food Challenge focuses on college and university campuses specifically to leverage the purchasing power of these large institutions to “catalyze the transformation of the larger food system.” Students in Macalester College’s Food Roots group have been working on the Real Food Calculator for over a year now, which is a tool the Real Food Challenge developed to determine whether or not food qualifies as “real” in the categories of ecologically sound, fair, humane, or community based.

The standard Real Food Commitment asks for the administration to commit to 20% real food by the year 2020, but thanks to longtime Bon Appétit Management Company initiatives such as the Farm to Fork program and to sustainable seafood, students found that Macalester College was already sourcing more than 20% real food! Continue…

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