Bon Appétit Management Company

Bon Appétiters love what they do — and so opening the kitchen doors for behind-the-scenes tours is one of their favorite activities. On a weekday afternoon not long ago, several Northern California teams shared their passion with a group of enthusiastic middle school kids.

Longtime Bravo readers may remember Hunter Amlie, the cool 4-year-old with the sunglasses featured on the cover of spring 2009. And now, Hunter is Bon Appétit’s youngest Farm to Fork vendor!

A farm visit offers firsthand knowledge of how supporting a sustainable food system means being more than just willing to pay a higher price.

Of course Bravo readers know just how important food recovery and reduction of food waste is to Bon Appétit’s core values. So imagine how tickled Executive Chef/General Manager Ron Stewart of RS5 Café was to form a partnership with a farm that will let Bon Appétit feed the farm’s animals as well as its fields.

The first thing you notice when you walk into Theory at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland, OR, is the eye-popping, 10- by-50-foot mural that wraps around the entire soffit of the café. Simple dishes — a burger with the works, a smoothie, bisque, and a pizza—are broken down into vividly photographed ingredients arranged into formulas on a black background.With fewer than 50 words, the display eloquently (and mouthwateringly) conveys the theme of the re-imagined café, which is the playful science of food.

Small, organic farms and bikes attract the same sort of fans, it appears — both are undeterred by inclement weather. Despite chilly rain, over a hundred students and community members came together for a bicycle-powered celebration of local farms, the second annual Farm Bike Tour, in Northfield, MN,

On Tuesday, September 24, all of our 500-plus cafés will offer a 100% local meal — everything from oils to grains to spices and sweeteners must be sourced from within 150 miles. The only foreigner allowed is salt. Some locations get a little loco and offer a 100% local menu — multiple all-local dishes!

Today the Food Recovery Network, a student run organization dedicated to recovering leftover food from college campuses to give to those in need, will be rolling out the newest resource for their organizing toolkit: A Guide to Food Recovery for Chefs and Managers (PDF). Bon Appétit Management Company is proud to have partnered with FRN to create this resource, which is specifically designed to help campus dining services at schools around the country — not just Bon Appétit ones — work with students to launch food recovery programs.

Bon Appétit General Manager Katie McKenna opened the doors to the Carleton East dining hall, where local middle school students embarked on a from-scratch pizza adventure taught by Sous Chef Gibson Price. The class included a fair amount of dough throwing (the approved kind) but also more serious topics, including tours of the full-scale industrial kitchen, a visit to the bakers (who offered delicious granola bars), and fruitful conversations about college life.

During the summer, Washington University’s student-run farm, The Burning Kumquat, grows much more than just fruits and vegetables. At Camp Kumquat, now in its third year, a new crop of young gardeners is ripening.