Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Why some food consumers are GOING LOCAL

By Harold Brubaker Inquirer Staff Writer
Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. June 10, 2005. By Harold
Brubaker, Inquirer Staff Writer.

 Local Consumers <https://www.aramark.net/uploads/images/140599866291.jpeg>
Arizona lettuce. New Zealand apples. Chilean peaches.

Cheap and plentiful food from afar is a wonder of modern life. But it
doesn't taste right to some consumers, who have begun demanding food from
closer to home.

University of Pennsylvania students Emma Kirwan and Rachel Meyer, for
example, began working last fall with Aramark Corp. - one of the world's
largest food-service providers - to get local foods on Penn's menu.

"The world is just so disconnected from their food these days," said
Kirwan,
who grew up gardening with her mother in Connecticut.

Advocates say that eating food produced closer to home reduces fuel
consumption, eliminates wasteful packaging, helps farmers get better prices
- and means better-tasting food.

Aramark worked with Kirwan and Meyer and opened a small stand on April 1 in
Houston Hall, Penn's student union, selling local and organic products such
as sandwiches on Amoroso's rolls with mozzarella cheese from Claudio's in
the Italian Market.

The stand, called FarmEcology, took in more than $1,000 a week at its peak
so far, twice the amount Aramark expected. That has Timothy R. Zintz,
district executive chef for Philadelphia-based Aramark, hungry for more.

But there are obstacles.

"The biggest challenge for this program is that the growing season for this
area doesn't coincide with the school year," Zintz said.

Also, Aramark typically buys as much as possible from one national
distributor to keep costs down; building relationships with local farmers -
few of whom have experience with food-service companies - is difficult.
Barriers include prices, payment terms, package sizes, delivery schedules
and liability insurance.

Nevertheless, Zintz envisions having a residential dining hall serving as
much local and sustainable food as possible in two years. "From a business
standpoint, Aramark discovered there is potentially a group of customers
we're not touching," he said.

At other universities here and elsewhere, food-service providers are
responding to a similar groundswell of demand for local and "sustainable"
foods - those produced with greater regard for the environment and animal
welfare.

For instance, Yale University, another Aramark client, launched a
sustainable-food project in 2003 with the help of a private grant and
subsidies from the university to help cover the costs.

Eat'n Park Hospitality Group, a suburban Pittsburgh company that runs
dining
services at Philadelphia University, is working toward buying at least 20
percent of its food from local farms during the growing season.

At Penn, Zintz's job has been to find suppliers. For help, he turned to
Sysco Corp., Aramark's primary distributor.

"What they were looking for in the beginning was immense," said Ann Louise
Klein, a Sysco national account executive who handles Aramark's business
for
the Houston company, the nation's largest food-service distributor.

Klein, who works at Sysco's Philadelphia branch, was relieved that some
items Sysco was already sending to Penn met the local and sustainable
criteria.

For example, Sauder's of Lancaster County was supplying eggs. Local fruits
and vegetables have come from Millbridge Farms Inc., a Vineland, N.J.,
broker that supplies Sysco. Zintz has found out that his milk supplier,
Wawa, uses Pennsylvania dairies.

Hatfield Quality meats, a large Montgomery County pork processor, did not
make the cut because it could not guarantee that the meat would come from
locally raised hogs, Zintz said.

To increase the offerings at FarmEcology this fall, Zintz is looking for
farmers who supply a range of products, such as produce, cheese and meats.
His goal is to minimize the number of vendors he has to deal with.

Some farmers are cautious about dealing with large corporations such as
Aramark, which last year served more than 200 million meals at 375
colleges,
universities and prep schools.

"If they come to me and have a stack of forms to sign, right away I'd get
very suspicious," said Glenn Brendle, a Lancaster County farmer who
supplies
25 to 30 restaurants.

Supplying Aramark also would entail additional costs, such as packaging,
that many farmers are not used to, said John M. Orobono, Aramark's senior
vice president for supply-chain management.

Aramark itself faces the added cost of training kitchen workers to deal
with
inconsistencies in the sizes of potatoes and other produce delivered by
small-scale farmers, Orobono said.

Zintz and Orobono are trying to solve the supply puzzle in a way that can
be
applied to more than one school. It may be a matter of building a supply
network for the entire Northeast, Orobono said. He might define "local" as
1,200 miles; that's not 30 miles, but it's also not 3,000 miles.

Regardless, Zintz, a 30-year veteran of the food industry, said it had been
a thrill for him to see people thinking about where their food came from
and
"using all their senses to eat... . That's like a dream for me," he said.

Originally published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. June 10, 2005. By Harold
Brubaker, Inquirer Staff Writer.