Dining services hears from student group

Scott Myers, director of food and vending for Carolina Dining Services, is on a quest for a more sustainable UNC.

The search has taken him from a cage-free chicken farm to a roundtable discussion with students, dining staff, local citizens and farmers Thursday.

The roundtable’s purpose was to create a concrete action plan for a more sustainable future at UNC, said Alena Steen, a member of Fair, Local and Organic Food, a student organization that works toward improving sustainability in UNC’s dining halls.

Thursday’s meeting first looked at the benefits of creating a menu based on foods that are in season locally.

Dining services has agreed to offer such menus three times each semester, but can’t offer many more because of the difficulty of finding a local farmer who can provide enough to feed all of UNC.

Thursday’s was the second roundtable FLO Food has hosted since its creation in November 2007.

Steen said the first discussion created significant relationships between the organization, Carolina Dining Services and the local food suppliers.

In addition to the roundtables, FLO Food meets with dining services biweekly, and both sides agree the meetings have been productive.

“It’s a good dialogue for student input that’s more focused through FLO food,” Myers said.

Those in attendance also discussed the possibility of setting up a food tracking system to follow the food from its initial production to UNC’s dining halls. This system would allow dining directors to know exactly where it came from and how it got to hungry students’ mouths.

The group also proposed creating a regional farm database. Only half of the agenda was discussed due to time constraints.

The event was one of many for Myers, who has been an advocate for the sustainability initiative in campus dining.

“I personally went with a student to a cage-free chicken farm in Nashville, N.C., attended a workshop on sustainability, a conference on sustainability and have talked to several local farmers and policy makers,” he said.

Top of Lenoir and Rams Head dining halls now offer cage-free eggs every morning if requested. They also introduced a reusable plastic take-out tray to reduce the amount of Styrofoam disposed.

Keith Smith, senior food service director, noted that the amount spent on local produce increased to $26,000 this August, September and October from $11,000 during the same three months last year.

Despite those successes, dining directors said they realize more can be done.

“Learning is a lifelong activity,” Myers said. “I’ve read some books, enjoyed visiting some farms and talking to people and knowledgeable students.”

The next roundtable meeting will be held on Jan. 22 to present topics that were not able to be discussed at Thursday’s meeting.



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.