foodservice players are addressing such issues. The results showcase that sustainability is a definitely a consideration for the college dining programs surveyed, as only 5.26% of respondents said that sustainability is not an area of focus at the time. Here's a look at some of the trends we uncovered and how those trends are coming alive in college foodservice. Waste, particularly food waste, is a hot topic throughout the foodservice industry at large. And for good reason. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, each year, U.S. food loss and waste embodies 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Reducing your operation's food waste is a great way to cut back on carbon emissions associated with the food served. FSD's survey shows that food waste appears to be a hot-button issue under the larger umbrella of sustainability for college and universities, with 89.5% of respondents reporting it's a focus area for them. In 2018, Compass Group started Stop Food Waste Day, an annual day of education and action surrounding reducing food waste. Now the day is celebrated globally by all sectors. In the college and university sector, Chartwells Higher Education hosted weeklong activities including a campus wide-Farmers Market. The University of Nevada at Reno celebrated a food waste competition between students and staff. WASTE TAKES CENTER STAGE Emery has noticed that food waste has is becoming a bigger and bigger focus in college and university foodservice recently. She says BC dining has made strides in reducing both food waste as well as packaging waste. She noted that BC doesn’t produce as much waste as many other colleges and universities because it is a retail campus. “We don't have the post-consumer waste that you have as much as you have in an all-you-care-to-eat program,” she says. The team also offers reusable plates and ware when students are dining in, and has launched a reusable to-go container program.
locations and done a fair bit of training and education about food waste in our team meetings,” Emery says. PLANT-BASED ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE A major effort to increase plant- based options was another big trend showcased in our State of C&U survey, with 73.7% of respondents indicating that offering plant-based options is a consideration for their operation. Major foodservice provider Sodexo recently increased its plant-based offerings on college campuses with the launch of its DefaultVeg initiative at nearly 400 college campuses. Emery predicts that plant-forward fare will continue to be a trend both at BC and within the industry as a whole, moving forward. “There seems to be more students choosing the plant-forward options than ever before. So, I do think that that's going to grow,” she says. One way the trend has come to life at BC is educating diners about plant- forward ingredients, like kelp. Last month, the college held a kelp culinary competition on campus. Each dining location was responsible for coming up with their own dish, and a panel of judges including students, professors and staff judged the recipes. The winning recipe, which was a tofu mushroom-kelp Wellington, will make it onto the menu next year.
“You can look at it as food waste, and then you can look at packaging waste," Emery adds. "Because we're a retail campus, students have the opportunity to take items to go. So, we're doing everything we can to try to get them to use reusable takeout containers.” As is common with many reusable container programs, there were some challenges associated with launching it. But as the team put more effort into marketing the program, students began to respond positively. One change that Emery says has had an impact is offering a 10% discount when dining with a reusable to-go container. BC Dining Services also teamed up with the student government to put some momentum behind the program. And as a result of these efforts, BC Dining Services effectively doubled the amount of uses from last year to this year. “We still have more opportunity to get more people to use it because we're retail, there's a lot to go. And we'd like to decrease the amount of trash that's been generated,” she says. To monitor and digitize food waste data, BC Dining uses a program called Leanpath, which helps the dining team to track and reduce the amount of back-of-house waste. In addition, training and education is a huge component of the college’s food waste approach. “We have rotated among different
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SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 2025
ILLUSTRATION: MIDJOURNEY/DIMITRI MORSON
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