Muhlenberg College
OP-6: Food and Beverage Purchasing

o In Summer 2013, Muhlenberg Dining embarked on a mission to further expand our procurement of local produce. Thanks to the tireless efforts of several individuals, led by Muhlenberg’s Executive Chefs, a new partnership was born with Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative.
o LFFC is a non-profit, organic farmers’ cooperative of 75 farmers in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (approximately 70 miles from Muhlenberg). Each week LFFC delivers a fresh bounty of produce, most of which is picked the day prior to delivery.
o Since the beginning of that year, we spent $3060.95 with LCFF. This is probably only about 2% of our purchases.
o The items we receive from Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative are apples, apple cider, flat bread, brownies, whoopee pies, an assortment of cookies, and granola bars.

o We receive the weekly local item ordering guides from several vendors. Our culinary team reviews the items and order based on seasonal availability and upcoming menu, special events and catering. The culinary team then shares a local purchasing report with marketing to communicate to with customers.

• The website URL where information about Muhlenberg’s Sustainable food and beverage purchasing efforts is available:
o http://dining.muhlenberg.edu/sustainability.html
After the partnership with LFFC was established, Muhlenberg Dining looked at other potential providers for local farm food. Again, through efforts from our Executive Chefs and Purchasing Department an additional partnership was formed with Common Market of Philadelphia. Their mission is to strengthen regional farms while making the local bounty accessible to communities and the institutions that serve them. We provide the infrastructure to connect public and private schools, hospitals, universities, grocery stores and workplaces to good food grown by our region’s sustainable farmers. Common Market provides farm-fresh produce from approximately 75 regional farms and delivers to about 150 different customers. Since the beginning of September we have purchased $21,885.64, about 1.14% of total food purchases and 6.12% of Produce purchases. Items we purchase from Common market include Apples, Eggs, Tahini, Kale, Squashes, Melons, Mushrooms, Tofu, Collards and Sweet Potatoes.
In the spring of 2015, Muhlenberg Dining looked at a variety of coffee programs to offer in the Wood Dining Commons. After taste tests and student input, the decision was made to convert from Green Mountain Coffee to Peet’s Coffee. Peet’s philosophy regarding the coffee industry is a simple one – Where the land is respected and the people who farm it live well, the coffee is –quite simply- better. It’s their belief that “long-term, direct relationships with our coffee partners, whose quality earns them premium prices that are substantially higher than market prices and always above the Fair Trade CertifiedTM brand price.” They also have a focused philanthropy where they “help educate coffee farmers on how to improve their coffee quality as well as support and donate to organizations dedicated to bettering the lives of people who live in coffee-growing regions. Peet’s also roasts 100% of their coffee in a LEED Gold certified roasting faciltiy. In the spring of 2016, the Admissions Office converted their office coffee program to Peet’s. A contributing factor in the decision was Peet’s Fair Trade programs and giving back to the communities that produce their great coffee.

We found it impractical to separate the purchases of on-site franchises, convenience stores, vending services, and concessions from those of our other dining operations, so we reported the overall percentage of campus food and beverage purchases that are sustainably produced for both parts of this item.
On-site franchises: The main ingredients for the majority of products that are used our one on-site franchise, Java Joe’s, cannot be locally produced, namely coffee beans, cocoa, and tea.
Convenience Stores: Our on-campus convenience store, the ‘Berg Bookshop, does not sell local food, only a very limited number of snacks produced by large companies. All local food is sold in our two main dining options, the main dining hall and GQ. This is because the Berg Bookshop is located in the basement of Seegers, where there is not much student traffic.
Vending services: Mobile vendors do not come to our campus. These businesses are more for large city-esque campuses. Although we do have vending machines, their content is dictated by companies we have contracts with, so they mostly have drinks and snacks made by large corporations.
Concessions: We do not have concessions - all food for all events are catered by Sodexo. This criterion most likely applies to large schools with frequent large sporting events.

So for the second portion of this item, we estimate that out of our total purchases for all food on campus, which would include food in the GQ and Java Joes (which in comparison to the dining hall is pretty small), the amount of food that is sustainably/locally produced would still be around 10%.

See above