Bon Appétit Management Company

At Bon Appétit Management Company, we take a lot of pride in our Farm to Fork program, in which we purchase fresh, local food from small farmers around the country. As part of its second annual Food Week, the University of Pennsylvania hosted a “Farmville Forum”: during this panel, Farm to Fork Partner* Trent Hendricks of Hendricks Farm and Dairy spoke quite frankly about his relationship with Bon Appétit and what it meant for his business: Transcript:

The University of Pennsylvania is now in the midst of its third annual Food Week, sponsored by Bon Appétit at Penn Dining. This annual celebration covers a variety of topics — from local food, to food justice, to nutrition — and is a collaborative effort among students, faculty, local community activists and farmers, and Fox Leadership at Penn. Here are some highlights of last year’s Food Week, including a Food Justice Banquet in the form of a four-course meal (catered by Bon Appétit of course) and a panel on agriculture featuring several of our Farm to Fork partners:

In this video , UK Professor Michael Crawford discusses the impact of factory farming and modern meat production, which he says should more rightly be called “fat production.”

Have you ever seen a farm that grows produce using minerals, nutrients, and water, but no soil? Bon Appétit Farm to Fork partner John Lawson of Hydro Harvest Farms is doing just that—and growing about six times more produce than the typical farm in the process, he says!

By Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation In this video, Katherine Ecker gives me a tour of Legacy Manor Farm, where animals don’t just roam the pasture, they roam the driveway, the house…and anywhere they want! One hen insists on laying her eggs in the back of Katherine’s car, and the Eckers have woken up to find a horse standing on their front porch. As part of our Farm to Fork program begun in 1999, Bon Appétit Management Company purchases fresh, seasonal produce from small, local farmers around the country. We recently celebrated the milestone of 1,000 such suppliers. As a Fellow for Bon Appétit, I get to travel to these different farms and learn about the joys and challenges farmers today face — and share their stories.

In this video, Clair Rudolf, a third-generation vegetable farmer in Bluford, IL, proudly shows me around Double Star Farms.

~By Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Mgmt. Co. For more than 10 years now, Bon Appétit has been working closely with local farmers and artisans to supply food in our cafes. Each year we take special care to celebrate our local partners in our Eat Local Challenge. Please join us for our sixth annual Eat Local Challenge Tuesday, September 28th!   

In February I visited George Jones Farm in Ohio, which works closely with Bon Appétit Management Company at Oberlin College. The farm, constantly looking for new innovations, is doing a lot of cool stuff—including using brew waste (from beer) for compost, and using compost for hot showers! In this video, one of the George Jones farmers describes their exciting compost projects. ~Posted by Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Mgmt. Co.

As the East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Management Company, I spent this past semester traveling to colleges and talking to different people about food sustainability. On the way, I met many of the people who actually imagine and create the food that we eat–our chefs. So here's a little tribute to them. Enjoy! ~Posted by Carolina Fojo, East Coast Fellow for Bon Appétit Mgmt. Co.

East Coast Fellow Carolina and I visited Montebello Farm, where we met Adrian Albor, a young farmer. He told us about what he learned working as a farmworker after coming to the United States from Michoacán, México. Today, he is the farm manager of 18 acres of diversified organic vegetables. Here is a vlog about Adrian of Montebello Farm.