UMass Dining was recently received a prestigious Ivy Award from Restaurants and Institutions, for its outstanding food service, support sustainability initiatives, and consistent efforts to improve and stay on top. Not only we are working with the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources for the Farm-to-School project, UMass Dining does much of its own food processing on site, including running its own Bakeshop, cold food commissary and warehouse, to ensure a high quality of goods. Contributing to the excellent quality is a multitude of vegetarian options and a strong emphasis on local food. In 2008, we purchased 23% of our produce locally. This included local farms such as Joe Czajkowski’s Farm, located 2 miles from campus (you can't get much more local than the production of food, literally in the Dining Service's own back yard). This reduces the cost of transporting large volumes of vegetables from the west and the south. We also offer fair trade, shade grown coffee everywhere, including the dining commons, cafes and convenience stores. We only serve sustainable seafood at UMass. Our customers enjoy the wild, all natural and flavorful Alaska salmon and Pacific cod. We joined forces with Seafood Watch, a program of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California that is designed to inform consumers of the importance of purchasing sustainable seafood.
We are working closely with the Office of Waste Management on campus to recycle our paper, cans and cardboard and to compost our food waste and Physical Plant to reduce our energy consumption. In 2007, a record 475 tons of food wastes was collected from dining services and shipped to three local farms and turned into useable food compost, we also reduce the electricity consumption by 15%. We can make a difference by working together with students, university community and vendors and this is just the beginning of what we can do. To further our commitment, Jane Williams is our new appointed manager of sustainability.
UMass Dining’ Environmental Efforts
- Purchase 23% of our produce from local farmers and 10% of food purchase from New England
- Purchase brown eggs locally
- Recycle within our Dining Service operations
- Compost all our wet food waste every year
- Serve sustainable seafood in accordance with the Seafood WATCH guidelines
- Educate our students about combating food waste
- Offer Small Plate, Big Flavor program everywhere
- Work with 4 Colleges Food Service directors locally for the Farm-to-School Project: Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire
- Farmers Market from September to November
- Four theme specials to promote sustainability
- Providing meals for local Meals-on-Wheels program
- “Skip a- meal” program to support just causes
- Serve Fair trade, shade grown and organic coffee
- Serve organic produce as often as we are able
- First organization in Massachusetts to quality for (0S1) green certified program
- Host the international conference Tastes of the World Chef Culinary Conference annually on Flavor, Sustainability and Wellness