Bon Appétit Management Company

In this video, Clair Rudolf, a third-generation vegetable farmer in Bluford, IL, proudly shows me around Double Star Farms.

By Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow, Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation   On Tuesday at Gallaudet University, BAMCO Executive Chef Jay Keller stood behind a beautiful spread of ingredients including Pennsylvania purple potatoes, Maryland oyster mushrooms, and tofu from across the street (more photos here). He had just 30 minutes to create a meal from ingredients chosen by the students from this bounty, as part of the East Coast tour of the Sustainable Food Challenge. After a bit of debate (chicken or salmon?), they finally settled on wild-caught Alaskan salmon and chicken produced without the routine use of antibiotics, as well as local oyster mushrooms, Swiss chard, and apples. As Jay went to work, the students, BAMCO staff, and I got to talking. Some highlights from our conversation: “I’ve heard that only half of the meat in the café is […]

The epic blizzard of 2011 will not be forgotten anytime soon in at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. A night of record snowfall meant Operations Manager Janice Moore spent a harrowing hour driving just eight blocks to work the next morning, only to find the front entrance completely blocked.

Event on Tues 2/8/11, 12:30-1:30pm. See details below. By Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow, Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation A new challenge is coming to Bon Appétit chefs across the country:  Create a delicious meal using only sustainable ingredients that are selected by the audience, and do it in just 30 minutes!  

By Vera Chang, West Coast Fellow, Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation                         Chef Paul Leiggi and Catering Director Chris Linn The last time I went wild mushroom foraging I was a child. My mom and I wandered the forests of the Catskill Mountains in New York. My basket was in one hand, my mother’s hand in the other. Our eyes set even more intently on the ground than we New Yorkers do on city streets. If I remember that day correctly, we found more poisonous than edible mushrooms. Regardless, foraging foods of all kinds quickly became a favorite activity. (To learn about my love of seaweed and seaweed harvesting, click here.) This November, while on the last stop of my fall West Coast Tour and visiting Willamette University in Salem, OR, I went back to the woods. The fog rolled into […]

~Written by Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Mgmt. Co.  As the East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit, I travel to college campuses to discuss food sustainability with students, and with our staff and chefs. I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Chef Justin McArthur, a recent addition to the Bon Appétit family at Case Western Reserve University. He’s been working with Bon Appétit for 4 months, but in the food industry for 14 years. He shared some of his thoughts on the industry, his career, and his passion for what he does.  When did you first become interested in pursuing food as a career? It’s the standard story; I started off as a dishwasher. My best friend got a job, so I decided to apply. So we were both dishwashers. Then the cooks all quit, […]

  By Vera Chang, West Coast Fellow, Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation The Whitman Model Farm Project not only conserves natural resources and improves Whitman College’s environmental efficiency, but also happens to produce delicious food. I know because I just had an outstanding salad at Bon Appétit Management Company’s Prentiss Dining Hall at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA for lunch. Now, post-meal, like a salad lover in search of her pot of gold, I’m off to find out where my microgreens[1] came from. It turns out that in the rooftop greenhouse of Whitman College’s Hall of Science, salad grows. Sweet pea tendril vines wind their way up from growing trays. Four students are planting and watering seeds. I am sweltering under the greenhouse’s captured sun, but still determined to learn more about my lunch.

Farmer Bob Knight (on right) with Bon Appétit Management Company Biola University Chefs By Vera Chang, West Coast Fellow, Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation “Farms are getting huge. Real estate is expensive in California. Farming in the global food economy requires [farmers] to have thousands of acres. Farmers that used to have 10 or 20 acres are now being pressured to buy 4,000 acres.” We are at the Bon Appétit Management Company Student Ambassador Program at Biola University, a kick-off event for thirty students to get to know some of the people behind food: Bon Appétit chefs, staff, and farmers. Executive Chef Peter Alfaro just spoke about the path that led him to work in the kitchen and his passion for making the food system more sustainable through purchases as a chef. Biology professor and head of the Biola Organic […]

~Written by Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Mgmt. Co.  As a Fellow for Bon Appétit, I have the pleasure of traveling to local farms from which Bon Appétit purchases, and meeting the very people who provide us with the food we eat. In September, I traveled to St. Libory, IL to visit Brad Schmitz, owner of Wenneman Meat Co., an old fashioned butcher shop and meat market that provides meat from Illinois farmers to Bon Appétit cafés at Washington University in St. Louis. Wenneman Meat Co. is unique to its area. Let’s face it—Illinois is corn country, not meat country. And sure enough, as I drove down IL-15 E—(nearly blinded by the sun, it was so bright!)—I passed field after field… after field… of corn, and soy. So what is this shop, sourcing local meat, doing in […]

~Written by Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Mgmt. Co.     As a Fellow for Bon Appétit, I have the pleasure of traveling to local farms from which Bon Appétit purchases, and meeting the very people who provide us with the food we eat. Last month, I traveled to Dover, PA to visit one of the incredible farms that provides food at Goucher College—Sunnyside Farm. Sunnyside Farm is run by husband and wife Homer Walden and Dru Peters, two kindred spirits with opposite personalities. Homer is the creative farmer, brilliant inventor, and engineer. Dru is the practical businesswoman who makes sure that their hard work pays off in the end. Neither could make the farm run on their own—but together they have built up a beautiful farm and successful business, and you only have to talk to […]