Bon Appétit Management Company

Every day, Americans take the abundance and low cost of our food supply for granted. Ironically, farmworkers — those whose lives are spent harvesting the fruits and vegetables we eat — can rarely afford to purchase them.

After growing up in Nebraska, the land of corn and cattle, I didn’t hear the term “sustainability” until I enrolled at Willamette University in Salem, OR, in 2006. And not until my sophomore year did I really connect the need for sustainability to the food system.

As I and the other current and former Fellows learned on our recent field trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium — whose Seafood Watch program has long been an important Bon Appétit partner organization — one thing that sets it apart is its mission to inspire the conservation of the oceans. And inspired we were by the end of the day.

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.

Even though Café Target is on the second floor of the Target Headquarters office towers in Minneapolis, it has the freshest herbs growing onsite — thanks to a customized vertical planting wall.

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!

Congratulations to the Bon Appétit Management Company team at Reed College in Portland, OR, which follows Lewis & Clark College to become our second café to achieve gold certification from the City of Portland’s Sustainability at Work program.

City Garden at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, has taken shape under the stewardship of Prep Cook Manuel Soto-Soto.

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

Lucky students at Santa Clara University have been enjoying the irresistible smell of fresh-baked breads— not to mention the taste of flaky croissants, healthy muffins, decadent Danishes, and succulent scones. SCU’s Nobili Bakery, a commissary-style bakery at the Santa Clara,CA, university, first “rolled out” last fall, after two years in the making, and continues to add new offerings and partnerships.