Bon Appétit Management Company

I knew I had to visit Pure Country Pork after learning it was the first sustainable hog operation in the United States to be certified by Food Alliance under its stricter guidelines of no farrowing crates or gestation stalls. Plus, since Bon Appétit committed last year to phasing out all pork raised using gestation crates by 2015, I knew I needed to talk to some experts to better understand the significance of this commitment.

One mark of a chef is knowing what to do when a whole pig is delivered to your kitchen. After breaking everything down into primals, the chefs at Regis University in Denver, CO, decided to try their hands at making house cured ham from the leg and bacon from the belly.

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.

People who say that the details of sausage making are best left to the imagination have never visited an artisanal sausage factory. A few lucky Bon Appétiters got to tour Continental Sausage Company – which has been in business in Denver for 30 years producing authentic Swiss-German style sausages from the best ingredients—and they have nothing to hide.

Once a way to preserve meat without refrigeration, charcuterie – the branch of cooking devoted to preparing bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, pâtés, and confit – has become an art within the culinary world. It’s also a popular cooking technique among devotees of sustainable food, because it utilizes parts of the animal that would otherwise be discarded. Making charcuterie isn’t easy, but Bon Appétit chefs across the country are embracing the challenge!

More and more people are learning about the environmental and health benefits of grass-finished beef and asking for it in stores and restaurants. Fifteen Macalester students from St. Paul, MN, got a chance to learn about this kind of ranching firsthand by visiting Thousand Hills Cattle Company in Cannon Falls, MN, a Bon Appétit Farm to Fork supplier.

Bon Appétit is proud to offer our congratulations to our Farm to Fork partners Melissa and Aaron Miller of Miller Livestock on being the first Food Alliance certified livestock farm in Ohio. The Millers raise grassfed beef and lamb, pastured pork, chickens and turkeys, and laying hens on 168 acres in Kinsman, Ohio — about 70 miles from Cleveland. Bon Appétit Dining Services at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland has long been buying the Millers’ pork, and the past year bought half of their hogs. On February 21, Bon Appétit announced a groundbreaking commitment to improving animal welfare practices. Part of that promise is to buy even more humanely raised meat from folks like the Millers who have taken the trouble to have their practices verified by a third party. That’s why our team at Case Western has encouraged the Millers […]

A few decades ago, when the majority of hogs lived outdoors and were able to eat whatever they wanted, pork was deliciously fatty and juicy. As industrial agriculture grew, pork became known as “the other white meat.”Director of Culinary Operations Bernie Laskowski from the Art Institute of Chicago would like to do something about this state of porky affairs.

Today — and not for the first time — Bon Appétit Management Company is making history in the food service industry. In a joint announcement with The Humane Society of the United States, we are vowing to stop serving all pork produced using the cruel and inhumane practice of gestation crates and all eggs, including “liquid” ones (those removed from their shells), from hens confined to battery cages by 2015.

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Larga Vista Ranch in Boone, Colorado along with some of the Bon Appétit team from Colorado College. Doug Wiley, who owns Larga Vista Ranch along with his wife Kim, is one of those passionate, charismatic people that I could listen to all day. A fourth-generation farmer working land that has been in his family for 95 years, he is well versed in everything from the benefits of raw milk to climate change and food safety.