Bon Appétit Management Company

Each September, Bon Appétit teams across the country gear up for Eat Local Challenge, a celebration of local ingredients, and the farmers and artisans who produce them. Since 2005, when Eat Local Challenge first occurred, the event has perhaps been the foremost way Bon Appetit brings attention to local food systems: by sourcing and serving 100% local meals to the delight of our guests across the country. 

From dill flowers to heirloom melons and selfies with pigs, the Curtis Institute of Music team got an up-close look at the work of Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-operative farms on a recent trip out into the field.

When Bon Appétit Fellow Elise Dudley and over a dozen Vassar College students caravanned out to Amenia, NY earlier this year, they expected to learn firsthand about the dairy industry and meet a storied local Farm to Fork partner. They got even more, including a lesson in emerging cooperative models that protect small dairy farms.  

In New York’s Hudson Valley, Farm to Fork vendor Hudson Valley Fresh Dairy offers an alternative dairying model that insulates small dairy farmers negative trends impacting the dairy industry.

Under the leadership of Culinary Director Kristela Nazario-Mendoza, the Bon Appétit Management Company at Chase Center team is putting Bon Appétit’s Farm to Fork program into action at one of the world’s premier sporting arenas.

West Coast Fellow visits the Milkhouse, a Farm to Fork vendor owned and operated by Colby College alumni Andy Smith.

On a sunny fall afternoon outside of Terre Haute, Indiana, Midwest Fellow Elise Kulers joined 20 first-year and transfer students of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods college on a tour of the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice farm.

This Black History Month, as we celebrate and amplify the voices of Black people in the United States, we also want to call attention to critically important programs like the CASFS apprenticeship, which do so much to offer onramps to farming, cultural foodways, and land justice for BIPOC folks.  

Gordon College Line Cook David Mather grew his passion project into Simply Green, an indoor farm offering fresh microgreens to local customers, including his Bon Appétit team.

The Bon Appétit teams at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and St. Timothy’s School came together for a special tour and picnic at St. Timothy’s own Redlands Farm in Stevenson, MD.