Dining Services
Accomplishments
The college’s contracted food service provider, Sodexo, has been an ally in efforts to introduce sustainable practices into our dining services. A “buy local” program which supports local, approved farms and reduces the energy associated with transportation has been introduced. The all-natural, hormone-free milk now served in all the dining halls comes from High Lawn Farms in Western Massachusetts. Produce, when seasonally available, is distributed to the college through Costa Fruit and Produce Inc., a company based in Charlestown, MA that purchases fruit and vegetables from local farms and cooperatives.
Bates dining hall features an array of organic products as part of their vegan/vegetarian format, while the convenience store in the campus center has began selling organic grocery items in response to student demands.
Fairly Traded coffee is available across campus. Five of the dining operations offer Green Mountain coffee, a local New England company that uses fairly traded coffees. Tower Court serves Aspreto coffee, which offers both fair trade coffee and rainforest alliance selections. The retail locations sells Pura Vida, a non profit company that offers all fairly traded, shade grown and organic coffees.
Initiatives
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Continue to expand the use of local products/vendors.
Implementation: Continue to grow our local purchasing by creating partnerships with area farms and working their crops into our menus.
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Expand water conservation efforts.
Implementation: All seventeen sprayer heads in kitchens campus wide were replaced by high pressure low flow spray heads resulting in a reduction of water usage from 4 gallons per minute to 1 gallon per minute. Continue to find ways to reduce the water used in our operations.
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Support the college’s efforts to reduce paper waste.
Implementation: The use of paper “to go” cups has been eliminated in all locations except in the Kosher dining hall.
Pursue the possibility of using a 100% compostable cup for the campus center.
Introduce community travel mug program. (2008)
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Continually upgrade recycling operations.
Implementation: Introduced new system in the campus center of sorting dirty trays and waste in the back of the house to increase percentage of waste captured for recycling.
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Expand the use of "green" chemicals.
Implementation: Have all dining operations across campus converted by spring break 2008.