On the menu: thoroughness Much of the fuel for the initiative comes from food—meaning Culinary Services. The massive operation serves nearly 4 million meals a year on the Athens Campus and employs more than 220 full-timers and 2,100 students, making it a major employer in Athens County. It runs a central supply kitchen, bakery, three residential dining venues, five cafes, three campus markets, a retail food court, a casual dining restaurant, a food truck, and catering services, says Mark Brunton, BSVC ’00, assistant director for Auxiliaries marketing and communications. Culinary Services keeps a tight rein on waste. It discards only a tiny portion of food during meal preparation, says Director of Culinary Services Rich Neumann—in fiscal year 2015, a scant 0.7 percent. The industry average? Two percent. And OHIO’s fractional waste gains new life as compost. Almost 30 percent of the venture’s 70-plus vendors come from the area, providing meat, eggs, dairy, produce, and retail items. Buying local supports regional sustainability by pumping dollars into the economy and reducing pollution associated with transportation. “We spend more than $2 million with local vendors annually,” Brunton says. “Just in the last two years, we increased our local
spend from 12 percent to more than 17 percent of our total foodbuying budget, with a goal to reach 20 percent.” The mantra: use everything, be thrifty, promote well-being, says Mary Jones, associate director of Culinary Services. Fresh vegetable trimmings become base for stocks and broth. Select meat cuts by a full-time butcher yield bits for stock for recipes. A cook-chill method prepares and stores pastas, soups, and deli. In-house production not only saves money; it also advances healthiness. Fresh-cut meats contain less sodium than packaged varieties; seasonal vegetables contain more nutrients than canned alternatives. Diners with bigger eyes than stomachs—leftovers constitute most of the negligible refuse—scrape remains into totes to be rolled onto box trucks for delivery to the compost facility.
The dirt: transformation Which hums with activity as the engine of Soil to Soil. Twice a day, grounds crews truck in food waste to be fed into two in-vessel composting machines with a combined six tons of capacity. They turn leftovers into compost and fertilizer for campus landscaping and athletic fields within a few months. Yard waste—leaves, brush, tree stumps—also becomes compost.
PAGE 18: OHIO Culinary Services produces almost 3.8 million meals per year. The University spent $11.8 million on food and beverages in fiscal year 2015. It spends more than 17 percent on locally grown food, sourced within a 250 mile radius of the Athens Campus or in Ohio. All food must be traceable to the producer. Food handling and treatment practices must be tracked. Bethany Bella, a sophomore interested in international environmental policy and communications, and a Voinovich Undergraduate Research Scholar, created this photo illustration from her cultural anthropology final assignment in fall 2014 examining food waste among OHIO students at dining halls. THIS PAGE: OHIO’s Compost Facility turns University food waste into usable soil. Photo by Jilly Burns, BSVC ’16
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