Nine corporate visionaries announced their commitment to support FoodCorps in its mission to give all youth an enduring relationship with healthy food. Bon Appétit is proud to be one of them.
At Bon Appétit, we believe that making a positive difference in the food system — one that pays dividends long past the holiday season — is the best gift to give. Every December, we make a sizable annual holiday gift to a nonprofit in honor of our clients in lieu of hundreds of physical tokens of appreciation. Our 2013 recipient is FoodCorps, a 4-year-old national service organization.
Acclaimed Chicago chef Rick Bayless is opening a Tortas Frontera location at the recently renovated ARCH Café at University of Pennsylvania. The chain’s first establishment on a college campus will be operated in partnership with Bon Appétit Management Company, Penn’s food service provider since 2009.
The consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has made sodium reduction a key focus. In partnership with CSPI, the food service provider Bon Appétit Management Company is extending its pioneering work in healthy cooking and guest education with a three-pronged sodium-reduction campaign at the 500-plus cafés it operates for corporations, universities, and museums in 32 states.
Today, Bon Appétit Management Company’s 500-plus cafés are showcasing its years-long commitment to local food, by preparing regionally authentic meals made entirely from ingredients harvested within 150 miles of each kitchen. And at many locations, guests will get to mingle with the farmers, ranchers, and food artisans whose food helped make each café’s 100% local meal a reality.
On Earth Day 2013 (Monday, April 22), Bon Appétit Management Company will turn its 500-plus cafés into fun culinary classrooms for the latest climate-change information. The first food service company to address how food choices can affect our shifting atmosphere, Bon Appétit has celebrated its Low Carbon Diet Day in conjunction with Earth Day since 2008. This year, in a hot new twist, corporate guests and students all across the country — ranging from eBay in San Jose, CA, to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Gallaudet University in Washington, DC — will get a real taste of how climate change is already endangering certain beloved food crops.
Keeping food out of landfills has long been a critical part of Bon Appétit Management Company’s mission of food service for a sustainable future. Bon Appétit is consequently proud to announce its new partnership with the Food Recovery Network (FRN), a student-operated nonprofit working on college campuses to curb food waste and end hunger. Bon Appétit and FRN will join forces in recovering surplus food that would otherwise be wasted from campus dining halls and delivering it to local shelters to combat hunger in the surrounding community.
A collaboration between the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation and Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), the Campus Farmers site (www.kgi.org/campusfarmers) offers a wealth of information and links to resources about starting an on-campus farm, managing farm finances, and staying in business.
The time is ripe for local fish. Eating locally and seasonally is a significant national trend, and many Americans now know the names of farms that grow their food. Still, even as we’re urged to eat more fish for its health benefits, few of us can identify local species or the fisherfolk who supply them. September 25 marks the nationwide debut of Bon Appétit Management Company’s first-ever Eat Local (Fish) Challenge, to be held simultaneously in all 32 states in which it operates. The event is an extension of our Eat Local Challenge, which we launched in 2005 to highlight locally harvested, seasonal flavors.
Effective September 1, 2012, all ground beef served in Bon Appétit cafés will come from suppliers that have met the strict standards of one of four independent animal-welfare organizations. (Beef purchases from small, local producers who are registered through the company’s Farm to Fork program will continue to make the cut.)