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Posts by CoFED:
- Assist the Regional Organizer and CoFED Staff in planning for each event, including but not limited to:
- Searching for and securing suitable locations
- Sourcing and securing food donations
- Corresponding with potential guest speakers and students
- Developing registration strategies, creative tracking processes and payment procedures
- Development and distribution of publicity materials
- Brainstorming event themes and activities + creative implementation
- Developing and/or assisting with fundraising events
- Potential opportunities to create and lead workshops at the events!
- Discounted admission to retreats, relevant food conferences, food events and/or dinner parties
- Gain marketable skills in online management tools and event planning
- Exposure to cooperative businesses, consensus decision-making processes, anti-oppression training, food justice in action
- Excellent networking opportunities with influential movers and shakers in the food movement
- Experience working with a small team in a fast-paced, professional environment where your ideas and input are valued and desired
- Professional support from and connections to advisers and partnering organizations
CoFED’s Monthly Newsletter: May 2012
May 17th, 2012Our Fundraising Campaign was a Success – Thanks to YOU!
Did you hear? We made it! 225 individuals from across North America signed up to be monthly donors—raising over $30,000 for CoFED and helping us meet our challenge match of $125,000! Thank you because without you our work wouldn’t be possible!
Update on CoFED’s Summer Retreats
The days are getting longer and warmer—summer is finally here—and our summer retreats are only a few short weeks away!
On the West Coast: The West Coast Summer Training is offering an early bird registration that ends on May 27th—act fast and save $30 on admission to the retreat! After that date the price is $180.
On the East Coast: Only TWO DAYS LEFT to register for the Northeast Summer Training & Incubation – only $150 for an inspiregizing week! Applications received after May 18th will be put on a waiting list. Don’t forget—if you register in a group of 3 or more, your group will get a discount price of $115 per person!
Urgent notice: If you registered for the Northeast Training but have NOT received confirmation, please email christine@cofed.org to confirm your registration. A glitch in our application process may not have accepted all applications—please connect with Christine ASAP!
Our Summer Retreats are CoFED’s long standing tradition of building the student food co-op movement. They are a magical combination of summer camp vibes, beautiful scenery, and the power of building a student movement. We provide professional and personal development with the opportunity to network with other students doing similar projects across our regions, with phenomenal speakers and intensive workshops. As we say, “inspiregize” to develop a more cooperative, sustainable culture through college campuses.
-CoFED Northwest Regional Organizers
Check out Facebook and the Northwest or Northeast Regional pages for more on our retreat schedules, workshops, fabulous retreat sites, great food and field trips! REGISTER TODAY!
Spend Your Summer With CoFED!
Looking to build your resumé this summer? CoFED has two enticing internship opportunities that will help you build the skills you need to make that resumé sing. This summer we will be offering a Business Research Internship and a Communications Internship.
The Business Research Intern will work with CoFED staff in researching and developing a guidebook for business model planning around sustainable, cooperative food business. The guide will focus on business operations around three types of student-run food businesses: food carts, cafés, and markets. This guide is intended to advance CoFED programming by providing students with the detailed resources needed to successfully operate food businesses on college campuses.
The dates for this internship are flexible but require approximately 15-20 hours per week for two months. Interns may have the opportunity to work remotely so all interested applicants are encouraged to apply. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
The Communications Intern will be given the opportunity to develop a strategic media proposal to advance CoFED’s presence through press and media. He or she will also be responsible for writing and distributing newsletters and blog posts while coordinating CoFED social media. This position offers the flexibility and opportunity to put your creative marketing skills to the test—this will certainly be a hands-on internship where you will work closely with staff in developing the next stages of our marketing strategy.
The dates for this internship require approximately 10-15 hours per week, from June 15 – Sept 15, 2012. These dates can be flexible for the right candidate. Interns may have the opportunity to work remotely so all interested applicants are encouraged to apply. Applications are due by June 1st.
For more information on both of these positions, including detailed job descriptions and qualifications, please visit the CoFED Jobs Board. Interested applicants are encouraged to fill out the CoFED Internship Application Form and send in a resumé and cover letter to jobs@cofed.org.
CoFED Introduces The Archives
We are proud to announce the arrival of the CoFED archives. We are now archiving plans, curriculum and resources for students in an online resource wiki. The page is a work in progress and will continue growing as we create more resources and gather more information. As we continue to build on these resources, we plan to develop this page into an interactive interface—to make your search for information even easier.
You can help us build our research database! Please send us plans and resources that have helped you and your co-op, or you believe may benefit students at various stages of planning, implementing and maintaining their campus co-ops.
Check it out and feel free to provide feedback directly to Matt at matt.steele@cofed.org. Visit archive.cofed.org and keep checking back as we continue to build out our resources page!
Co-Cycle Gears Up For Cross-Country Tour
This summer, in honor of the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives, Co-cycle—a youth-led, bike-powered tour of cooperatives—will cross the country to build momentum for the cooperative movement. Through public events, Co-Cycle will encourage the communities they travel through to take notice and seek out connections with local co-ops—building a web of connected co-ops across the country!
Check them out and offer your support as they ride through a town near you! The tour begins on June 1st in San Francisco—events will be held in Portland, Seattle, Helena, Minneapolis, Madison, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Cleveland and Amherst!
Take part in an event, join us for a leg, help out in our fundraising drive or have your co-op be a stop on our tour and help us connect with the national cooperative movement!
-Megan Meo, CoFED Board Member & Co-Founder of Co-Cycle
Check out co-cycle.coop or the Co-Cycle facebook page for more information!
In Cooperation,
The CoFED Team
Co-Cycle Gears Up For 2012 Cross-Country Tour
May 2nd, 2012
By Megan Meo, member of the CoFED Board of Directors and Co-Founder of Co-Cycle — This summer, in honor of the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives, Co-cycle—a youth-led, bike-powered tour of cooperatives—will cross the country to build momentum for the cooperative movement. Our aim is to draw attention to cooperatives as economic, social, and ecological alternatives to conventional business models, to strengthen regional cooperative networks, and to conduct research on different cooperative models.
The journey will be organized as a set route comprised of regional legs. Events will be hosted by different communities and may include educational workshops or public showcases of cooperatives in a single region. Each event will strengthen networks, educate the general public, and galvanize awareness of and support for the cooperative movement and its capacity to catalyze social change. Our journey will be documented by a New York University student film crew, in order to spread the message of Co-Cycle and the power of cooperatives to a larger audience.
Our project is sponsored by the International Year of Cooperatives and we are being supported in our organizing efforts by representatives from the US Federation of Worker Co-ops and the NCBA. The tour will begin on June 1st in San Francisco, CA and end in Amherst, MA in early September. We will be visiting a range of different co-ops including housing co-ops, credit unions, agricultural co-ops, student-run co-ops, etc. We aim to link these cooperatives together as well as connect youth more closely with the cooperative movement.
The tour is comprised of nine different legs which are divided by events in key locations along our route. Cyclists will have the opportunity to do the entire tour, series of legs, or single legs. We will be hosting events in the following cities:
· San Francisco
· Portland
· Seattle
· Helena
· Minneapolis
· Madison
· Chicago
· Ann Arbor
· Cleveland
· Amherst
To join the team or get more information about the tour, visit the Co-Cycle website: www.co-cycle.coop or their Facebook page!
Work-Trade Opportunities for 2012 West Coast Training
April 30th, 2012CoFED is looking for four enthusiastic individuals to make up our Kitchen and Logistics Teams for the 2012 West Coast Summer Training.These individuals must be available to attend the entire event from June 16 – 23, 2012 in Georgetown, CA. Meals and accommodations are included.
CoFED is looking for a Kitchen Manager and Retreat Cook to serve approximately 50 people 3 meals a day. We are seeking students or professionals who are interested in sustainable food movements and/or cooperative theory and are looking to gain experience working with healthy food, managing a kitchen staff, and preparing high volume, casual meals in an easygoing environment. This team must be able to plan, budget, prep, and prepare all meals – incorporating leftovers and maintaining minimal waste, prepare for a variety of dietary restrictions (gluten free, vegan, vegetarian, allergy-sensitive, etc), manage student volunteers effectively and cooperatively, all while maintaining a clean and safe kitchen environment.
Qualifications:
Preference given to applicants that have worked in industrial kitchens, catered, or have cooked for large groups. You must be flexible and have great communication skills.
Expected Hours:
An average of 8 hours/day — in 2-3 hour shifts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Compensation:
$250 stipend each. Meals and accommodations are provided, with access to retreat grounds and yoga classes with limited access to training workshops and speakers. For the right candidate, CoFED will aid in travel costs.
CoFED is seeking two energetic and well-organized individuals to make up our Logistics Team for the 2012 Summer Training. This position is ideal for students who wish to enhance their retreat experience through hands-on retreat planning and implementation. The position requires that applicants be available for the entire event, from June 16 – 23, 2012. The Logistics Team will be responsible for coordinating with Regional Organizers for pre-retreat planning, set-up and manage registration tables, document workshops and events, and assist students and staff throughout the retreat.
Compensation:
$150 Retreat admission fee is waived — meals, accommodations, workshops, and beautiful scenery included.
To Apply:
Send a short statement of interest and your resume to Anna@cofed.org by May 15th, 2012. Qualified applicants will be asked to participate in a short interview.
West Coast Summer Training – Register Now!
April 30th, 2012
Our combined California-Northwest Regional Summer Training is going to be well worth the trip! We’ve got a great line up of ag experts, cooperative worker-owners, funky farmers and field trips to local food hubs. This gathering will build community across our regions and between student food co-ops while providing essential skills to keep your groups alive and successful. We will have workshops, speakers, and more to help student groups at all stages – whether you’re at the idea stage or already have an operating storefront, make concrete progress on their co-op projects! Students who have attended CoFED retreats before will find our programming new and exciting!
This Summer’s retreat will be held in Georgetown, CA – in the Sierra Nevada foothills, at the beautiful Ariadne Yoga + Labyrinth Retreat Center. At 3,000-foot elevation, the retreat site is home to a range of beautiful plant life – not to mention, some rather large trees! There are beautiful gardens, yoga studios, a labyrinth and all of the beautiful scenery of the California Foothills.
The retreat price is only $150 for almost a week of workshops, field trips, speakers, materials, and more! Food and accommodations are included!
If you have any questions, please contact your Regional Organizer:
Southern California Regional Organizer — Janaki@cofed.org
Northern California Regional Organizer — Ava@cofed.org
Northwest Regional Organizers — Anna@cofed.org & Amy@cofed.org
Space is limited and will fill fast – register now!
Scholarships are available.
The Revolution Will Be CoFED
April 30th, 2012
By Yoni Landau, CoFED Chief Evangelist (CIVIL EATS) — Young food movement activists may be idealistic but we are not flower children. We are process and results-oriented; we may criticize, but we also learn from successful business models. We’re comfortable with money, know how to network and are handy with a spreadsheet.
Three years ago, I was organizing protests at UC Berkeley. Now I’m at my laptop, speaking with Camilla Bustamante, a Northern New Mexico College Dean. She’s enthusiastically telling me about a student-run, local foods cafe that has just opened at her campus.
In January 2010, CoFED (The Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive) trained Jeff Ethan Genauer, a student at Northern New Mexico College, at our Training the Trainers retreat. For 10 days, he and a group of 5 other organizers huddled together around a wood stove and wifi router in a farmhouse in Sebastopol to learn the basics of how to open a cooperative food business on college campuses. Since then, he’s been hard at work doing financial planning and market research and now, with the help of his campus, he [has] successfully opened a student-run cafe. And he even taped the only-slightly awkward ribbon-cutting.
La Tiendita (“The little store”) sells healthy, local breakfast and lunch and provides meaningful employment to 5 students. It is currently run “collaboratively”, according to Bustamante, but there is interest in transitioning to a formal student cooperative, though it’s unclear whether students, workers, or both, would be the cooperative’s members. The produce for Tiendita is either grown onsite at the Sostenga farm or purchased from local farmers. This is an unusual project for a college that is rural, known mainly for its athletics and is not filled with affluent foodie types.
It’s not just happening in New Mexico of course. At UC Santa Barbara, they’ve gotten administrative buy-in for a solar-powered food truck, at the University of Washington-Seattle they’ve gotten rent-free cafe space and are negotiating for a prime space in their student union, at NYU they’ve gotten funding for a food cart. This summer, some 80 new student co-op organizers will gather for seven days on the West and East coasts to re-”inspiregize” and learn basic organizing, fundraising, campaigning and planning skills.
Our generation of food movement leaders gets how complex the food system is–and we are committed to addressing the whole, messy picture. These projects are educating and taking action on issues many foodies would rather ignore, including issues of race and class, of corporate control and workers’ rights. And it’s definitely not just CoFED that sees things in this way. READ MORE
CoFED Northwest Converges at Seattle’s “HUB” for Social Innovation
April 5th, 2012This week in the Northwest – On April 7, students will be traveling from as far as Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR to meet at The HUB Seattle for CoFED’s Pacific Northwest Student Food Co-op Gathering. The event will bring together the Northwest regional network of student organizers from the food justice and cooperative movements to share resources, offer project support and connect to the larger food justice movement in the region.
The HUB Seattle, a co-working space for social entrepreneurs, has partnered with CoFED to host this one day meet-up for student leaders. The HUB, in their effort to support socially innovative businesses and organizations, offers this space for free just once each month – and this month CoFED is that lucky candidate.
The HUB is a collection of collaborative workspaces for social entrepreneurs in cities across the globe. Their goal is to become “a global network of connected communities that enable collaborative ventures for a better world”. The HUB co-working space provides a physical place for creative collaboration and innovation – a place for entrepreneurs to learn and connect on the innovative ideas that will ultimately create a more sustainable and socially responsible world.
Like us, The HUB believes real change happens when people come together. CoFED is thrilled to be working with The HUB in supporting a collaborative space for student leaders to connect and build ideas for a better food system and a more cooperative world.
Anna Issacs, CoFED’s Northwest Regional Organizer based in Olympia, WA adds that “the partnership between CoFED and the HUB Seattle is a perfect example of the culture of collaboration and exchange that can amplify the efforts of groups working toward social innovation.”
February Newsletter 2012
March 2nd, 2012Hello fellow CoFEDerates!
It has been over a month since our Winter Retreat and our hearts and minds are still captured by all of the inspiring souls we have met, or reconnected with, in this new year! And so, this month of love goes out to all of you! Thank you again for making this year’s retreat an especially memorable experience.
After taking a second for a post-retreat breather, we’re off the sidelines and back in the game! And the game has picked up considerable speed as we race through the second month of the Year of the Cooperatives! And with your support we hope to continue picking up speed throughout this year and for years to come-
Support CoFED, for Only the Cost of a Couple Burritos!
Photo used under Creative Commons from Moe_
Yes, it’s that time to ask for your assistance dear CoFEDerates. We understand your tight budgets, especially while tuition fees continue treading up a relentless ascent, which is why we are asking you to support us with only $12 a month! That’s like giving up a few burritos or, for the caffeine addicts, a few locally-roasted, fairly-traded, smooth and delicious hazelnut milk lattes (yum)!
Here’s the deal- we have worked hard over the last few months to secure $125,000 in donations from our Founder’s Circle, but there’s a catch – in order to receive these donations we have been challenged to come up with 212 new monthly donors by April 1st! With your monthly contribution and the collaboration of our Founder’s Circle, CoFED will be able to build a foundation to continue providing cooperative education and support services while establishing exciting new programs and opportunities. With your help we will be able to provide scholarships for CoFED retreats, fund summer incubation trainings, create more opportunities for student leadership and training, and allow Regional Organizer’s to reach out to and visit campuses for more one-on-one co-op guidance!
Visit our donation page for more information and all the perks for joining our team!
CoFED Jobs Board: Northeast Event Planning Intern
This is your last chance to get in on this exciting opportunity! We’re looking for an innovative intern interested in sustainable food movements, event planning and/or cooperative careers and alternative business. This position will support the development of CoFED’s events in the Northeast, including but not limited to our March Leaders Retreat and the June Summer Incubation! The application deadline is fast approaching – please apply by February 27!
Job Duties:
Opportunities and Perks:
To apply, please send a resume and cover letter to jobs@cofed.org and cc: christine@cofed.org.
Note: This position has been closed as of March 2, 2012.
Attention Californians! Help Prevent Unlabeled GMOs!
Photo used under Creative Commons from fishhawk.
The California Right To Know campaign seeks to help ensure that the labeling of genetically engineered ingredients on packaged goods and produce makes it to the ballot in November 2012. This is a landmark bill that will ensure the health and safety of our food supply relating to genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act would require food sold in retail outlets such as grocery stores – but not including restaurants – to be labeled if produced with genetic engineering. Genetically engineered foods would also be prohibited from being advertised as “natural.”
CoFED cares about sustainability, and we are deeply concerned about the unknown long-term impacts of GMOs. As part of our educational mission, we seek to inform Californian students about this ballot initiative and the impacts of GMO food. Here’s the hook- the campaign needs 800,000 signatures for this to make it on the ballot in November, so every bit of help counts!
If you are in California and care about this issue, please get involved and be sure to spread the word
Stay in Touch!
That’s all the news for now… be sure to stay tuned to our Facebook page for updates, photos, and videos from the cooperative movement. If you would like to contribute to the CoFED blog, media gallery, or have something tweeted to our 1,000+ followers, please email media@cofed.org.
With much cooperative love,
The CoFED Crew
Occupation Becomes Creation in 2012
January 6th, 2012What a way to start the new year! The Occupy movement has evolved in scope and in purpose; spilling like a tidal wave into 2012. People the world over are now seeing the opportunity for massive change – to take back what is rightfully ours and using the power of the majority, the 99%, to do so.
In realizing the need to strip the world of corporate greed, what better place to start than by freeing our campuses from the hands of multinational corporations? College campuses are over-run with corporations like Starbucks. It has happened in communities everywhere: small businesses have been fading out to larger multinational corporations, companies that control the majority of wealth and power in their markets, allowing for little to no competition. The college campus is one such community. Today, you would be hard-pressed to find a campus that has not been overtaken by fast food and corporate influence.
This is exactly why students, the leaders of the Occupy movement, are choosing to occupy their campus food systems. We here at CoFED are watching in awe as some of our CoFEDerates in Seattle and Philadelphia, leaders in their local Occupy movements, manifest the ideals of the Occupy movement through the creation of sustainable local business that support people through cooperation.
Anshika Kumar, a CoFEDerate from the University of Washington in Seattle, reports that,
“The occupy movement has ignited a fire behind, and created a worldwide platform for, the beliefs and injustices that drive the work that I do every day… One of the most exciting prospects to me of this movement is the collective awakening of the fact that our current economic system does not work for the people… This mass mobilization of people who are realizing these truths and are actively seeking answers and alternatives represent an unparalleled opportunity to introduce the concept of cooperatives, and cooperative principles, into the mix of solutions that [are] going to get us out of this mess”.
And we find that the idea is spreading; students at the Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, recently reached out to Anshika and her team in Seattle. Students there have been occupying the Starbucks on their college campus for more than a month. Here’s a look into the Occupy Starbucks protest – through a youtube video and a blog.
Occupy Starbucks evolved out of a desire for healthy and affordable food on their campus after Starbucks – among other multinational corporations – encroached upon their campus – forcing out a student-friendly canteen which once fed students whether they could afford the meal or not.
“With the introduction of these global firms, the university has become a market for the commercial activities of multinational corporations. There is enough space for everyone but us: from the CEOs who teach in our school to the employers that scout young employees for their companies. There is no affordable food, no place for having a real conversation, and nobody asks what we want. We could tell them if they asked us. But, because they have no intention of asking, we must make ourselves heard. We have decided to reclaim our campus”.
Similar stories are materializing around the world. We are thrilled to hear of the strength and commitment among those Occupying Starbucks at Bogazici and look forward to hearing more of their story in the coming weeks. It is now that we must bring these realizations to life on campuses and in communities around the world. If 2011 was the year of the protester, then 2012, the International Year of the Cooperative, sets the stage for the birth of an entirely new social structure.
Washington Post Loves on the Funkstown Food Co-op in DC!
November 6th, 2011The Washington Post is loving on some CoFEDerates! Congratulations to the Funkstown Food Collective who is working to open a cooperative, ethically-sourced cafe at George Washington University – they were featured in beautiful article on student social enterprise in the print (and web) version of the Washington Post. One of their core team, Melissa Eddison had some beautiful full page photos too! Here’s an excerpt…..
The concept of social entrepreneurship has made business owners out of students who otherwise wouldn’t have considered entrepreneurship, such as Melissa Eddison, a 22-year-old GWU senior who is working to open the Funkstown Food Collective on the GWU campus in late 2012.
The cafe will serve locally grown organic food and has a business model that combines for-profit and nonprofit components, with an option for students and low-income patrons to volunteer at the cafe for food credits.
“This was another way I could effect change,” says Eddison, who is majoring in international economics.
Eddison, who is slated to graduate from GWU in December, says the search for capital for her food collective through fellowships, angel investors and other sources has been humbling.
As Eddison’s friends are fine-tuning their résumés and lining up job interviews, she’s working with third-year law students on incorporation paperwork, developing a marketing plan and working with finance professors to iron out the wrinkles in her business plan.
“It’s thrilling to be laying the bricks as I go, but it’s also scary,” she says.
Read about student social enterprise at the full article, here.
AP spots the trend: College students want gourmet, not grub!
May 11th, 2011On Monday, May 9th, the ASSOCIATED PRESS released a story highlighting the trend of students launching food co-ops on college campuses.
Amazingly, this same story was then printed in newspapers and on websites all over the United States – including the Washington Post, Yahoo! Finance, Santa Fe New Mexican, Boston Globe, Connecticut Post, San Francisco Examiner, MSNBC Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Sioux City Journal, and the list goes on and on and on…”
We’re stoked that BSFC (the collective who inspired the creation of CoFed) is getting this national media attention, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to see the campus food cooperative movement continuing to grow and spread like wildfire!!!
Here’s the story:
By: STEPHANIE REITZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — Not all college students are willing to live on cold pizza, ramen noodles and greasy takeout.
Some, like Wesleyan University junior Nica Latto, prefer wedges of locally produced artisanal cheeses added to the mix, perhaps a gouda with a slightly nutty undertone or a Gruyere for a fondue party while studying with classmates.
So to satisfy palates that lean more gourmet than grub, Latto and several friends organized a co-op in which fancy cheeses from a nearby Connecticut farm are delivered each week to the Middletown campus and distributed to students, many of whom line up with baguettes — and meal cards — in hand.
While universities nationwide have updated their dining hall menus to meet the increasingly epicurean expectations of students like Latto, many students are also taking things a step further and bringing fancy fare to campus on their own.
For some, it means launching co-ops to get everything from fair-trade coffee to fancy herbs or hand-rolled butter from nearby farms. For others, it means collaborating with the vendors who stock their dorm cafeterias to get quinoa, kohlrabi or other non-traditional items on their menus.
In California, a student-run collective near the University of California, Berkeley, gained scores of members as soon as it opened last winter, the legacy of students’ fight against fast casual chain Panda Express’ now-dashed 2009 plans to open a site there.
Now, the Berkeley Student Food Cooperative is the flagship example in a national effort to train collegians to start their own food co-ops emphasizing healthy, local food in student-run storefronts, campus cafes and other spots.
At Wesleyan, the plan to sell shares in a co-op for fancy cheese drew hundreds of students within a few weeks of launch. Its weekly distributions started in February, introducing the members to dozens of cheese varieties delivered from the small family-run Cato Corner Farm in nearby Colchester.
All spring, students have lined up on Wednesday afternoons to pick up cheeses. Many also have posted recipes on a blog the organizers created for the co-op to share creative ways they’ve cooked or served their bounty on pasta, in omelets or as fondue.
“A lot of people are ambitious about cooking (with the cheeses), but they try a bite when they pick it up at the distribution and end up eating it right then,” said Latto, a 21-year-old from Acton, Mass., who organizes the co-op with fellow students Zachary Malter, Sarah Telzak and Kaitlin Lee.
They call it a natural outgrowth of many Wesleyan students’ leanings toward sustainable, locally produced foods.
“I think our generation or just people in general are becoming more conscious about the quality of what they eat, where it comes from and if it’s sustainable,” said Malter, 20, a sophomore from Irvington, N.Y.
Bon Appetit Management Co., Wesleyan’s food service provider, lets students use their university-issued dining points toward the cheese co-op, as it also does for students on other campuses for farmers’ markets and other non-dorm dining venues.
At the University of Pennsylvania, where about 5,000 students are on a campus meal plan, administrators have worked with Bon Appetit and students to meet demand for more authentic ethnic foods, seasonable produce and artisan breads.
Today’s salad bars at Penn go far beyond iceberg lettuce and sliced tomatoes, and now include tofu along with unusual options such as squash salad with dandelions, based on a Native American recipe.
“What we are seeing with the young people today is much more of an emphasis on high quality, taste and variety. They are more sophisticated in regard to the things they are looking for, including whether it’s local or organic,” said Marie Witt, Penn’s vice president for business services, which include the dining halls.
Witt, a Penn alumna, said she remembers the days when students were thrilled at the chance to scoop their own ice cream in the dining facilities. Now, they request sushi, meat produced without antibiotics, cage-free eggs and foods that mirror those they’ve eaten in their global travels or from their homeland (”If it’s not authentic, they will know and they will tell us,” she added).
And while pizza remains popular, students expect far more than the standard cheese-and-pepperoni fare. Penn now offers white pizza, spinach pizza, vegetarian pizza, pizzas with special multi-grain crust — anything leaning toward new tastes and trends.
Witt said they see that desire for novelty in the emails and survey responses they receive from students. But the clamor for edamame, tandoori chicken and organic yogurt doesn’t mean they’re getting rid of the old standbys.
“They ask for all of these things,” she said, “but they still do eat the cheese fries.”
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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We met our challenge of 212 monthly donors for the 2012 Year of the Cooperative and raised over $30,000 during our campaign. Sweet!
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