Bon Appétit Management Company

What do avocado skins and seeds, onion skins, and beet trimmings have in common – besides being candidates for the compost pile? These scraps can all be used in plant-based dyes, and using them not only reduces food waste, it reminds us of what’s possible when we practice creative reuse and extend sustainable practices from the kitchen out into the other parts of our lives.

In this follow-up to last week’s post, we share the stories of three food hubs that demonstrate just how critical this model can be for matching supply with demand.  

At Bon Appétit Management Company, food waste is our foe. The 40% of food that goes unsold or uneaten in the United States is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s more than that.

On the rise across the country since the mid-2000’s, food hubs are one solution to common barriers to getting local food into restaurants and difficult-to-access institutional markets. With a keen focus on selling to anchor institutions (long-term fixtures in communities, such as universities, hospitals, and school systems, that play vital roles in the local economy), food hubs coordinate the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of locally and regionally produced foods from a network of responsible producers.

The sustainable seafood movement is always evolving, which is why Jenny Slafkosky, Bon Appétit’s communications director, joined Maisie Ganzler, chief strategy and brand officer, in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the end of October for the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions (CASS) annual conference.  

We had the pleasure of interviewing Essence Sage Oyos from the Mesa Grande Business Development Council (BDC) to talk more about the work the BDC is doing to achieve the goals of the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians. 

This simple roasted vegetable recipe was created by Essence Sage Oyos of Golden Eagle Farm.

Twenty DePauw University first-years are spending the morning at the Ullem Campus Farm in Greencastle, IN. Rather than sitting in a classroom, they are outside enjoying the first wisps of fall, bringing shovels down into the rich soil to unearth the starchy golden gems below.

For Native American Heritage Month, Bon Appétit is partnering with Golden Eagle Farm, owned and operated by the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians. Golden Eagle is an ambitious endeavor balancing traditional Indigenous farming methods and new revenue generators such as agri-tourism.

Sheepshead. Ribbonfish. Wahoo. Tilefish. When Locals Seafood co-founder and North Carolina native Ryan Speckman was living on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the late 2000’s, he and his friends feasted on these native seafood species regularly. He wondered why, when he was growing up in the inland part of the state, he’d never encountered fish from the Carolina coast before – and most residents hadn’t either.