The Real Food Challenge: Transforming University Food Systems Kira Foley Worcester, MA, Clark University
Katy Hardt Wesleyan University
ABSTRACT
contact to a competitor. The demand on college campuses today is for real food, food that is fresh, healthy, fair and sustainable. By organizing and formalizing these demands to the university and food service providers, students are empowered to transform the food economy.
The idea of the Real Food Challenge (RFC) is to harness the power of university students to change institutional food policy to create a healthy, ethical, sustainable food system. Our national goal is to shift $1 billion of annual college food purchases away from industrial agriculture and towards local, ecologically sound, fair and humane sources. We do this by training and supporting students to lead ‘real food campaigns’ on their campuses. We have been leaders in these campaigns on our respective campuses and are now working on research and creating resources to implement ‘real food policies’ on campuses across the country. The tool used to keep campuses accountable for their commitments is the Real Food Calculator.
In the U.S., colleges and universities spend 5 billion dollars each year on food. The goal of the Real Food Challenge is to transfer 20%, or 1 billion dollars towards real food producers. As undergraduate students, we took leadership roles in winning campaigns on our respective campuses. The support and resources provided by the Real Food Challenge allowed us to put our passions into action and develop our leadership skills.
Categories and Subject Descriptors (2 max)
2. DESCRIPTION
[University Food Policy]; [Student Led Campaigns]
Campaign Tools
Keywords
1. Real Food Campus Commitment
Farm-to-Institution, Food Purchasing, Sustainable Food Systems, Student Leadership, University Food Policy
The idea of our work is to transfer a portion of existing college food budgets towards ‘real food’ purchasing. Real food is defined as ecologically sound, local and community based, fair for workers, and humane for animals. The Real Food Campus Commitment is a document, developed and written by RFC student leaders, that is signed by college administrator and dining service representatives to commit the school to purchasing at least 20% real food by the year 2020. Signatory schools agree to increase procurement transparency, set up a food systems working group, create a real food policy, and multi-year action plan to reach benchmarks along the way.
1. INTRODUCTION: AIMS AND BACKGROUND Corporate consolidation plagues our current food system. Industrial producers like Cargill, Tyson and ConAgra are pumping out highly processed, unhealthy food with little concern for environmental impacts or human health. The consolidation and industrialization of food does not escape the market of colleges and universities. Today, 3 companies generate 92% of the revenue in the contracted food service industry: Compass Group PLC, Sodexo Group and Aramark Corporation. These three companies have a disproportionate impact on the food supply chain and provide an accessible market for large-scale industrial food manufacturers, while excluding sustainable and ethical producers.
A copy of the Campus Commitment full text can be found at http://www.realfoodchallenge.org/sites/realfoodchallenge.drupalg ardens.com/files/Real%20Food%20Campus%20Commitment.pdf. The Campus Commitment also allows for the creation of a supportive network of signatory schools to work together and exchange best practices and challenges. Many challenges faced by students running campaigns can be solved by leveraging the power of other, similar institutions. For example, Aramark Corporation told all managers not to speak with students involved in the Real Food Challenge; however, after many students from Aramark campuses came together to pressure them, Aramark gave in to student demands.
As customers, colleges and universities have leverage over these food service companies. The market for contracts is extremely competitive, so if the food service companies are not willing to align with the demands of the university, they will lose their
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2. The Real Food Calculator
summer, Kira’s internship has been focused on creating, collecting, and organizing resources for schools who have already signed the Campus Commitment. These resources are in the form of four “Implementation Packets” for Students, Dining Services, Administration, and Food Systems Working Group (FSWG) members. (Note: The FSWGs are working groups at each school composed of student leaders, university staff, professors, dining services, and relevant local stakeholders. The primary function of the FSWG is to help in implementing the Campus Commitment). Working to continue the momentum of the Real Food Challenge and its’ student - leadership model, Katy has been researching corporate food policy in order to develop the next big target for student-run campaigns. We hope to expand this model of campaigning and changing university food policy across the nation and beyond.
The Real Food Calculator is an online auditing tool developed by the Real Food Challenge used to calculate the percentage of real food purchased at a particular school. This tool is run by students and is used to assess and track progress towards real food procurement. More details about the calculator web app can be found at http://calculator.realfoodchallenge.org/.
3. APPLICATION AND RESULTS We have contributed to successful campaigns at Clark University and Wesleyan University to sign the Real Food Campus Commitment. Through this process, we have developed skills in leadership, facilitation and organizing. The process brought us face to face with important stakeholders, including university administration, dining service managers, head chefs, and university business managers. This process is valuable for purposes of involving student leadership and encouraging cooperation among important players in university food policy.
Acknowledgments: The Real Food Challenge campaign strategy and successes are the result of many peoples’ efforts including students, professors, dining services workers and ally organizations. We want to acknowledge the work of all of these stakeholders as well the regional field organizers at the Real Food Challenge for their support and resources throughout this process, specifically, Stefy Narvaez.
Katy, along with other Wesleyan students, has been running the Real Food Calculator to audit the purchases of the dining hall at Wesleyan. With this information, the group identifies areas for improvement and researches options of how to increase real food procurement. In the fall, Katy and two fellow students will be teaching a class on just and sustainable food systems, running the Real Food Calculator as part of the activism and teaching process.
Lastly, we want to thank those who were critical in the successful campaigns at our schools including Wesleyan students Erin O’Donnel and Manon Lefevre, Wesleyan dining managers, Ernie Arroyo and Michael Strumpf, Clark students Ginny Cooke, Elliot Altbaum, and Jordan Stein and Clark’s Dining Services General Manager Heather Vaillette.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS With 18 Campus Commitment signatories and over 300 schools participating in this method of institutional change, the RFC network is rapidly growing. In order to accommodate this growth, we need new tools to support leaders on each campus. This
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