PRIN'S SUSTAINABILITY CHASE

Prin sustainable star with waste, not yet with food.

Styrofoam-free since 2009, Principia College’s food services is a sustainability leader in higher education waste-management.

But when it comes to the “input” – the food prepared for the 470-plus student body – sustainability is still a reach due to costs.

Like many other colleges in the United States, Principia uses Sysco, one of the market’s giant distributors, to supply most of the food served on campus.

“We get 80 to 85 percent of all of our product from Sysco, and the reason is, it’s smart buying,” says Lance Thornton, director of dining services, which runs the Piasa Pub, college student store, and the dining hall.

Sysco is a multinational food corporation omnipresent in the food service industry. Among the attractive aspects of Sysco are the group-buying options available for its products, which allow customers to obtain high volumes of food at very low cost.

“Sysco offers us great deals for food ingredients, which cuts down on costs,” says Thornton.

He says that given his budget, cost rather than high-level sustainability is the top priority in food purchasing. But, he adds, “We use Sysco because they, too, have very sustainable practices.” And, he adds, the company's wide variety of options does “offer highly sustainable foods for a price.”

Even though Sysco can special-order absolutely anything the buyer may want, what Sysco carries in its warehouse “depends on what is selling the most,” says Thornton. That includes everything from highly sustainable pasture-raised Kobe beef from Japan, to no-sustainability Sysco classic mini-corn dogs – and what sells the most may not be sustainable foods.

“What a lot of people don’t think about is that we have to meet people where they are," says Trey McCartt, the head chef of Dining Services. "We have to be offering affordable meals for the people that are barely paying their way

through college. Anything is possible, it is just hard to make sure that you are making everyone happy and being practical.”

However, adds McCartt, students would “need be willing to be paying 50 percent more for the food that they buy.

Like most supermarkets, Sysco has a selection of its own low-cost products such as bread, dairy, and meat. Names like Block & Barrel, House Recipe, and Fire River Farms are very familiar to Principia students.

Sustainability practices exercised with its own branded products, like beef and chicken. are not touted on Sysco's website. And a Sysco representative reached by phone said she could not offer “any information for you as far as that goes.”

Although Sysco’s website uses terms like “high quality,” “finest” and “hand selected” to describe its own house brand food, none of these Sysco-branded products found on the Principia student’s plate are labeled as having USDA certifications for sustainability.

Although expensive, these voluntary food quality certifications are needed to ensure that the food is actually free from antibiotics, growth hormones, or was actually raised in a sustainable way.

“Yes, really sustainable food is expensive to buy, but we can definitely step up some of our standards if you ask me,” says Jolee Keplinger, a student in Principia’s sustainability program who did her sophomore capstone project on the vegan diet. She says she has been working closely with the dining services over the past year to increase the options available for vegans.

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