Imported Locally
Photo by Carl Socolow '77.
Dining Services gets more produce from the College Farm than ever before
by Tony Moore
Dining Services gets a whole lot of the produce it serves on campus from Dickinson’s own organic farm, and in early September, more vegetables sourced from the farm—to the tune of 2,734 pounds in a single week—ended up at campus dining spots than ever before.
“Customers are looking for organic products because they are untouched by many other items, such as pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers,” said Errol Huffman, director of Dining Services. “Naturally raised produce and organic products tend to have richer flavors that make eating our favorite food very pleasurable.”
Dickinson’s continual scratching of the organic itch has helped land the college on The Daily Meal’s “Best Colleges for Food in America” list, and farm produce is available at all dining sites on campus. For example, farm products are used for juicing at the Underground and the Juice Box and can be found in sandwiches and in the salad bar in Union Station, the Dining Hall and The Quarry. The popular pre-packaged salads available across campus also are loaded with the farm’s vegetables.
According to Huffman, the record use of the farm’s products—toppling the old record by nearly 400 pounds, with the help of 1,195 pounds of tomatoes—will be enhanced going forward with a host of initiatives, such as new recipes and more diverse flavors.
“I challenged the culinary team to build more specials into the monthly menus, develop global and regional themes and to become bolder with flavor,” Huffman said. So stay tuned.
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Published September 17, 2014