Bon Appétit Management Company

Behind every Farm to Fork partnership is a story of a few individuals working hard to nourish their community and give back in many more ways than just food. 

During this year’s Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating the women-owned businesses that are part of our Farm to Fork program and supply our teams and the communities they serve with produce, meat, and artisanal food products.    

Our partner, Numi, provides us with assorted herbal and caffeinated Fair Trade Certified teas, ensuring fair wages, safe working conditions, and community development premiums to support health, education, and infrastructure projects. They work closely with farm partners around the world, sourcing 130+ organic ingredients from more than 34 countries, guaranteeing traceable ingredients and positive outcomes for tea workers and their communities.   

In honor of the 25th anniversary of Farm to Fork, our groundbreaking local sourcing program, we’ve synthesized our many lessons learned into a white paper, Sowing Success: Local Food Purchasing Insights from 25 Years of the Farm to Fork Program.

We’re thrilled to share the newest issue of Bravo – affectionately known as the “almost-quarterly newsletter of Bon Appetit Management Company,” which went on hiatus during the pandemic. Today, it’s back with a new format but the same commitment to celebrating our people and their accomplishments. Check it out!

In 2010, the Bon Appétit Management Company team at the University of Pennsylvania struck up a partnership with The Common Market, a new non-profit organization dedicated to building sustainable and equitable local food systems. Nearly 15 years later, Bon Appétit and The Common Market have grown together, with Bon Appétit-served colleges, universities, cultural institutions, and corporate headquarters sourcing from The Common Market in Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, and beyond. Here’s the story of how the partnership, centered around shared values, grew from one metro region on the East Coast to span half of the United States. 

The cows of our Farm to Fork partners at Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company have a pretty awesome view. Situated at the southern tip of Tomales Bay in Marin County, California, the farm’s residents look out over the long, narrow bay to the Point Reyes peninsula, one of the most ecologically diverse (and breathtakingly beautiful) places in the country.  

The St. Olaf College Garden Research and Organic Works (STOGROW) and the Carleton Student Organic Farm employ rotating summer student interns each year, who grow thousands of pounds of produce, all of which is purchased by Bon Appétit for the schools’ respective cafés. The farms, which are both just 1.5 acres, have an outsized impact, serving as hubs for experiential learning and community-building. 

When Najeeb Muhaimin approached Nicholas Walker, director of operations at Emory University, about buying the hibiscus products and pastured Halal chickens he was raising at Pride Road Farm, his poultry and hibiscus operation in Shady Dale, Georgia, Walker’s immediate response was: “Let’s make it work.”  

Red’s Best was founded in 2008 by Jared (Red) Auerbach, a fisherman and entrepreneur who’d worked on boats in Alaska and Cape Cod and had noticed how small-scale fishermen were struggling to manage shifts in the regulatory landscape and in the ocean itself. They’ve been a partner for years, introducing many of our universities to lesser-known species with their fish of the day program.