Bon Appétit Management Company

Bon Appétit Management Company General Manager Michael Cleary and his team introduce students to house-made ferments with new station concept.

Josh Parr practices a new philosophy of the soil at Lafayette College’s LaFarm.

On my table sat a hefty 5-gallon bucket overflowing with green apples. Weighing in at 32 pounds, the fruit represented the average harvest bucket of green tomatoes for which farmworkers in Florida — where most of the tomatoes east of the Mississippi come from in the winter months — are paid a shocking 45 cents per bucket. 

Fellow Elise Kulers visited Bui Natural Tofu, a beloved Locally Crafted partner at Reed College and a mainstay for tofu enthusiasts in Portland, Oregon.

Furman University has long served Due South Coffee in their Library Café, keeping students fueled on responsibly sourced and locally roasted beans. So, when Bon Appétit Fellow and Furman Graduate Elise Dudley reached out to Professor Sarah Worth about bringing her Philosophy of Taste students to experience a coffee tasting at Due South’s Roastery, the educator welcomed the opportunity. 

Located in Pomona, California, just up the road from the prestigious Claremont Colleges, Farm to Fork vendor Di Stefano Premium Cheese recently welcomed a group from Bon Appétit for a tour of their production facility.  

Led by Executive Chef Daniel Stern, the Quaker Kitchen is creating weekly food-centered opportunities for students to build community at University of Pennsylvania. Every Friday students gather together in Quaker Kitchen to prepare and share a meal, but this particular week was distinct. Through a partnership with Penn’s campus farm, a unique group of students were invited to enjoy a simple plant-forward meal highlighting seasonal ingredients.

To celebrate our fruitful relationships with our Farm to Fork and Locally Crafted vendors, we’ve created an almost-quarterly series that shines a spotlight on this longtime partners. This quarter, we’re telling the story of Open Hands Farm, a beloved partner for a number of Minnesota-based Bon Appétit teams. 

In February, the New York Times broke the news that Bon Appétit’s Chief Strategy and Brand Officer, Maisie Ganzler, had been nominated to the board at McDonald’s by financier Carl Icahn, who holds shares in the fast-food brand. Icahn has been pushing McDonald’s to stick to its 2012 commitment to transition its pork supply away from inhumane gestation crates. Ganzler, who successfully led the transition of Bon Appétit’s pork supply away from gestation crates (a nationwide rollout of the product is occurring right now), was chosen by Icahn for her deep direct experience in working with suppliers to make this change. In this Q&A, Maisie talks about the journey from asking lots of questions about the welfare of pigs to receiving a highly publicized board nomination for a fast-food giant.

In 2021, Bon Appétit Management Company announced a new climate policy, committing to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 38%, per calorie of food, by 2030.