Bon Appétit Management Company

Working with San Francisco startup Nima to provide safer dining options for guests with gluten allergies.

What do local farms have to do with kitchen safety? Both farmers and food service providers have a responsibility to keep their customers from becoming sick — and the better you know those customers, the heavier that responsibility weighs. In addition, the more Bon Appétit employees know about the farmers and artisans who provide the food served in the cafés, the more they can inspire customers to support these local heroes. Supporting local food producers rewards our community with tastier, safer food that contributes to our local economy. Employees of Bon Appétit at Duke University in Durham, NC, recently had the opportunity to connect food safety and farming first hand

Peter Coclanis argued in the Wall Street Journal that “American food is much safer than you think.” He is right in that that system only (italics mine) kills eight people a day on average, and that they are the weak members of our herd: babies, the elderly, the sick. He seems to think some human suffering is an acceptable price of doing business. Too bad it’s one that the food industry doesn’t actually pay.