Tables in the Caf advertise that Bon Appetit buys from local suppliers for students to eat in their on-campus food service locations. However, currently only nine percent of food served in the Caf is from local suppliers.
Steve Rall, general manager of Bon Appetit, said it is important for Bon Appetit to support local businesses.
“Ideally, Bon Appetit would like to be serving 20 percent of foods from local suppliers. Right now we are spending approximately $8,000 per week and we would like to spend about another $8,000,” Rall said.
Bon Appetit utilizes the Farm to Fork program to buy and serve local food on campus. According to Bon Appetit, local is considered to be within a 150 mile radius around campus stretching from Tehachapi to the Inland Empire.
However, the Bon Appetit’s website inaccurately lists where they buy the food that is served on campus. The site shows Bakeaway Deluxe Goods, BB Produce and Bennett’s Honey Farm as food providers, when Bon Appetit actually buys Biola’s coffee, bagels and produce from other local vendors.
Bon Appetit buys bagels from Bonjour Bagel Cafe in La Mirada. The cafe has been there since the early 90s. However, new owners took over about a decade ago and have served locally made bagels to Biola students since then.
LACK OF AN UPDATE
The Bon Appetit staff at Biola does not update the website, but the corporate managers of the site are referring to Bon Appetit’s Southern California accounts, Rall said in an email.
Bon Appetit also serves Cal Institute of the Arts, but the school has a different set of vendors listed on their website. Rall said in an email that he is contacting corporate Bon Appetit regarding the discrepancy.
Bon Appetit is expanding its coffee supply on campus by increasing the number of Starbucks products in the new Heritage cafe, which opens tomorrow. Bon Appetit wants to meet student requests as well as bring new local vendors to campus, Rall said.
“We just started a new Farm to Fork vendor for coffee at the coffee cart from Redlands,” Rall said.
Groundworks Coffee, Bon Appetit’s coffee supplier on campus, is located in North Hollywood. As Los Angeles’s original coffee microbrewery, Groundworks has set the industry standard on efficient coffee roasting. Philip Hand, an original owner of Groundworks, said their practices are in line with their passion to provide people with quality organic coffee. Groundworks also supplies Biola with Monin brand syrups and sauces that accompany many coffee drinks on campus.
PARTICIPATING IN A REVOLUTION
Bob Knight, farmer at Old Grove Orange Inc., is a fourth-generation farmer in Redlands who grows the vegetables and fruit Biolans eat. Knight said his team tries to grow food that the community would like to eat, since he is focused on primarily serving the Los Angeles basin.
Knight grows eighty percent of his produce organically and is taking steps to become a completely organic produce source.
“We are participating in a revolution trying to make the food system one that we want globally is difficult,” Knight said. “But we grow the best stuff that everyone wants as well as treat our workers right.”
