Bon Appétit Management Company

This Earth Day, we are flipping the switch to plants to lower our individual and collective carbon footprint! We are challenging our guests to use this Earth Day as an opportunity to consider climate-friendly alternatives throughout our cafés.

 “I was the lone ranger out there,” said Bon Appétit Founder and CEO Fedele Bauccio, speaking to how the national dialogue around food system issues has developed in the 39 years since he started the company. Fedele was on the lineup at a daylong seminar hosted by Emory University and Spelman College, in collaboration with Food Tank, the nonprofit food think tank dedicated to food system reform.

In the past two years as a Fellow, I’ve engaged hundreds of college students around food waste issues to raise awareness and inspire others to address this problem. I’ve learned and shared how Bon Appétit is constantly evolving our commitment to addressing food waste companywide. And I’ve learned about how other players in this space are taking action, both on the ground and through legislation.  

Who knew making ice cream could double as an arm workout? The Colorado Springs community asked this very question as they shook plastic bags of heavy whipping cream, vanilla extract, sugar, and rock salt back and forth for ten minutes straight to make a classic vanilla ice cream (sprinkles optional).  

Penn chefs took street food to the next level over the course of the first annual Wellness Cup, creating flavorful yet approachable dishes such as jackfruit empanadas, hearts of palm lobster rolls, a build-your-own falafel bar, vegan bang-bang cauliflower steak, and cornbread pancakes with seitan chili, spicy maple syrup, and “sour cream” derived from a sunflower seed base. But the winning dish was…

Congratulations to Tanarsha Farley and Cristina Espinosa, two of our chefs who travelled to Dallas, TX to represent Bon Appétit at Compass Group’s annual Women in Culinary Showcase in early March, a gathering among all of Compass’s sectors that celebrates women’s contributions to the field.

What is the meaning of fifty cents? In today’s world, two quarters might get you a stick of gum, a postage stamp, or one small piece of fruit. Weighed against the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, fifty cents are equivalent to a little over four minutes of work. For a farmworker, however, fifty cents mean something entirely different.  

We’re no strangers to fighting food waste at Bon Appétit – we’ve been finding ways to keep food out of landfills since we opened our doors. Our most exciting step toward fighting food waste in our kitchens was the creation of Waste Not™ in 2021, our proprietary waste tracking system created by chefs, for chefs. Now we are excited to introduce our newly upgraded companywide waste commitments, which will help us meet our broader goal of reducing food loss and waste nationally by 50% by 2030, which we first pledged to work toward in 2016.  

While many food labels you might find in the grocery store provide insight on a farm’s environmental approach or treatment of animals (think: USDA Certified Organic or Certified Humane), few give meaningful insight on the ways farmworkers are compensated or treated. This is where programs like the Fair Food Program (FFP) and the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) come in.

After almost two decades of boycotting, marching, educating, researching, and signing onto commitments, Bon Appétit Management Company is proud to reflect on progress made while continuing the fight for farmworkers’ rights.