Blog posts from:
Peter Todaro

Supporting small dairy farms can benefit both local communities and the environment, so the question for Bon Appétit teams is how to best support those farms.

In 2010, the Bon Appétit Management Company team at the University of Pennsylvania struck up a partnership with The Common Market, a new non-profit organization dedicated to building sustainable and equitable local food systems. Nearly 15 years later, Bon Appétit and The Common Market have grown together, with Bon Appétit-served colleges, universities, cultural institutions, and corporate headquarters sourcing from The Common Market in Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, and beyond. Here’s the story of how the partnership, centered around shared values, grew from one metro region on the East Coast to span half of the United States. 

Outside of Hood River, Oregon, fruit trees sprawl across acres and acres of bucolic landscape of the Columbia River Gorge. Sam Asai and his family have been tending their orchard here for generations.  Sam, whose grandparents emigrated from Japan in the early 20th century, owns and operates the orchard together with his family. Sam’s grandparents purchased some of the land that now makes up A&J’s acreage in the 1900s, raising their family and establishing their first fruit trees.

The Bon Appétit at Roger Williams team has built a leading local sourcing program, bringing the best of the state’s cornucopia of seafood, produce, and animal proteins to campus. Over the past 18 years, the team, led by General Manager James Gubata and Culinary Director Jonathan Cambra, has worked closely with a tight-knit group of Farm to Fork vendors, learning some valuable lessons along the way. 

Bon Appétit's Plant Forward trainings bring a rigorous curriculum and meaningful connections to teams across the country.

Unlike most farm animals raised in the U.S., Greg Gunthorp’s turkeys, pigs, ducks, and sheep will never know the inside of an industrial livestock house. Instead, they spend their days outside on pasture, running amongst the trees in the rolling hills of Northeast Indiana.

Josh Parr practices a new philosophy of the soil at Lafayette College's LaFarm.

To celebrate our fruitful relationships with our Farm to Fork and Locally Crafted vendors, we’ve created an almost-quarterly series that shines a spotlight on this longtime partners. This quarter, we’re telling the story of Open Hands Farm, a beloved partner for a number of Minnesota-based Bon Appétit teams. 

Our newly formed Food Education Team is poised to take food literacy to the next level in our cafés and in the communities we serve.