Bon Appétit Management Company

For the past 13 years, Bon Appétit Management Company’s Eat Local Challenge has asked chefs to produce a meal entirely from ingredients grown or raised within 150 miles. This year’s event, held Sept. 26, included an additional twist!

Produce often travels 1,500 miles between farm to consumer, but as part of the Eat Local Challenge, students, staff, and faculty had the chance to eat a meal sourced completely locally.

More than 300 St. Olaf students joined other Bon Appétit guests to award Open Hands a Fork to Farm grant.

On September 26, a dozen Oberlin students volunteered to work on New Creation Farm in Chardon, OH. It was on this visit that farm owners Kristen and Scott Boehnlein learned they won Bon Appétit’s Fork to Farm grant.

Every September since 2005, Bon Appétit Management Co. has tested the creativity, ingenuity, and talents of its unit chefs with an event called the Eat Local Challenge.

Open Hands was selected as one of two winners in the Midwest by guest votes at every Bon Appétit location in the region.

While Eat Local Challenge is a single-day initiative, RWU Chef de Cuisine Jonathan Cambra takes the spirit of the event to heart in preparing each day’s menu.

Under a big top tent, a seemingly endless array of locally produced culinary options, with a healthy side order of social responsibility

Wesleyan celebrated the 15th anniversary of Bon Appétit’s Farm to Fork program with an all-local barbeque.

“I think it’s really cool. And it makes us be more aware of the healthy options that we have,” sophomore Anna Soppelsa said.