Green Dining at Middlebury

From buying local and organic to minimizing waste through composting and reusable cups, Middlebury Dining administrators and staff are continuous leaders in initiating sustainable practices for the Middlebury campus.

Local & Organic

Compost

Biodegradable Utensils & Reusables

Reusable Travel Mugs

Greenhouse

Green Kitchens

Biodiesel

Information & Awareness

Dedicated Staff

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Local & Organic

Charlie Sargent, chief purchaser for Dining Services, is committed to building relationships that support local food producers. With Dining Services providing upwards of 7,000 meals a day, and working from a budget of nearly three million dollars, there is a lot of food to order.  In addition, the college's most recent food vendor bid request emphasized Middlebury Dining's commitment to purchasing locally produced products.  In the bid letter announcement it specifically states …

Middlebury College Dining Services strives to support the local economy by purchasing locally produced products and some items will be specified as such. 

Burlington Food Service of Burlington, Vermont was awarded this bid and regularly supplies the college with food products from thirty-three Vermont food producers. 

Middlebury also incorporates fifteen organic products on an on-going basis into the campus cuisine. Dining Services works directly with farmers and local produce distributors to increase the amount of local produce used in the dining halls, recognizing the potential income they can offer farmers by steering more of the College's annual produce purchases toward local growers.  Each Fall, Dining Services hosts a  Thanksgiving feast featuring fresh turkey, chicken sausage, braised venison, potatoes, carrots, buttermilk, cider and porter from Vermont food growers and producers. 

But it's not just holiday fare, students are regularly treated to locally grown in season fruits and vegetables, maple syrup and local dairy products such as milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream.  New on the horizon in summer 2003 is a partnership between Dining Services and the Middlebury College Organic Garden.  This student-initiated garden will sell small quantities of freshly harvested produce throughout the summer to Dining Services who continue their operations for the renowned Language Schools offered at Middlebury throughout the summer.  In the fall of 2004, Dining Services worked with sophomore Camille Padilla, who is also a member of a fishing family, to purchased 25,000 pounds of wild Alaskan king salmon from Seafood Producers Cooperative who has a plant in Padilla's hometown of Sitka, Alaska.  The wild salmon will replace farm raised salmon that had been regular fare on the dining menu.

Linking academics to operations, two Environmental Studies Senior Seminar (ES 401) projects in recent years have focused on locally grown food:

Know Your Food, Know Your Farmer: Highlighting the Connections Between Middlebury College & Local Food Providers

In addition, the 2002 ES 401 project included the development of certified wood framed posters for the dining halls that showcase the Vermont-based farms and food manufacturing sites.  Morley McBride '02 also created the artwork for reusable labels that dining hall staff use to highlight the foods at each meal grown or manufactured in Vermont.

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Compost

An unfortunate by-product of any mealtime is food waste.  On a national average, food waste comprises upwards of 7% of the municipal solid waste stream.  Not for Middlebury College.  A collaborative effort between Dining Services and Facilities Management turns nearly 300 tons of food waste into rich piles of compost for use in greenhouses and gardens, and as soil amendment on campus. Food prep scraps, postconsumer food residuals, waxed cardboard, paper towels, napkins and food prep waste paper --some 70% of the College's food waste -- is composted.  Plate waste (post consumer food residuals) is run through a pulper to remove excess water.

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Biodegradable utensils & reusables

Even when Dining Services moves outdoors for picnics or large College celebrations, the compost program maintains momentum.  Thanks to an idea from dining hall manager Russell Hulst, the College used biodegradable utensils made from cornstarch for many years that then became part of the compostables along with paper plates, napkins, paper cups and a biodegradable trash bag liner to boot.  In recent years, with the discontinuation of the biodegradable utensil product line by BioCorp, the College continues to seek a new source of compostable cutlery.  They have also shifted to melamine reusable plates for most of the big outdoor functions.  It is remarkable that approximately 90% of the waste generated by these large outdoor events, feeding as many as several thousand people, goes directly into the College's composting system instead of the landfill.  While a few ants may join the festivities, piles of waste no longer outlive the memory of these dining feasts.

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Reusable Travel Mugs

To dissuade the use of disposable cups on campus, every new student, staff, and faculty member is given a reusable mug by either Dining Services or Human Resources.  All are encouraged to use these cups for their take-out beverage needs.  As one crosses the campus, the mugs are common appendages hooked to belts and backpacks, or held close on a wintry morning filled with a steamy beverage as the race to class begins.

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Greenhouse

When winter sets in, Dining Services' goals of using organic and locally grown foods do not go into hibernation.  "Buying locally grown organic vegetables is definitely a challenge during Vermont winters," notes Dining Services Associate Director Matt Biette.  "We regularly have to look to Florida and California for fresh organic salad greens".  However, Matt is currently managing a greenhouse demonstration project in hopes of developing a non-fossil fuel dependent, efficient winter gardening technique that could yield local salad greens throughout the cold months.  The greenhouse, built in 2001, was funded through a campus environmental grant.  Dining Services offers opportunities for students to undertake research projects in addition to tending winter crops.

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Green Kitchens

In fall 2002, Dining Services began serving meals from a new dining hall in Ross Commons that highlights international fare while providing westerly vistas of the Adirondacks and Addison County farmland.  Design engineers and architects worked with Dining Service staff to incorporate a series of environmental features into the equipment and layout of this new facility.  Natural light fills the space from large, triple-glazed, westerly facing windows.  Variable speed fans over the stoves sense heat and smoke thereby increasing or decreasing the hood exhaust rate as needed to conserve electricity.  Director of Operations George Whitney developed relationships with several Vermont furniture manufacturers for chairs, tables and display units made of locally harvested, certified wood for use in the Ross Commons dining hall and study lounges.

Adequate storage for food waste and recyclables were included in the design of the building's space allocations.  Low flow faucets and energy efficient lighting are found throughout the dining hall.  Heat generated from the motors of the compressors for the walk-in coolers and freezers is used to heat the mechanical workroom.  When air conditioning is required, sensors allow an automatic adjustment of the pump speed as the demand for cooling falls.  As part of the Vermont Act 250 environmental review process, staff from Efficiency Vermont reviewed and approved the energy components of the entire facility.  Standards from the College's Designing the Future:  A Framework for Implementation of Sustainable Design & Construction Standards for Middlebury College were also applied.

With the opening of Ross Dining, Dining Services invested in equipment to undertake laundry services in-house.  Matt Biette, Associate Director of Dining Services, was awarded a campus Environmental Grant to partially fund the inclusion of a water recycling device on the washing machine.  Due to the deep soiling of aprons and chef jackets, each load of laundry generated in the dining halls goes through two wash and rinse cycles (wash, rinse, wash, rinse).  The water recycler captures the rinse water that is then reheated with a steam injector for the next wash cycle.  For every load of dining's laundry, two potential inputs of new water are avoided through the installation of the water recycling equipment.

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Biodiesel

In addition to Dining Services strong academic links through work study, student employment, and student and faculty research at the greenhouse, their research arm doesn't stop there.  Ron Schildge '03 received a campus Environmental Grant from the Environmental Council in 2001 to research the feasibility of converting waste vegetable oil from the kitchens into biodiesel fuel.  Dining Services generates about 40 gallons of waste vegetable oil per week that was managed through the compost system.  In 2002, with the support of Dining Services, Ron processed several gallons of biodiesel fuel that he used in his own 1990 VW Diesel Jetta.  Gaining further support through a Campus Ecology Fellowship in 2002 from the National Wildlife Federation, Ron expanded his partnership to include Dining Services, Facilities Management and the Patricia Hannaford Career Center (the local vocational technical high school) to produce biodiesel for testing in some of the diesel run college equipment (that annually consume over 7000 gallons of diesel fuel).  Ron also taught classes on alternative energy at the Hannaford Center and worked with high school students on special projects related to this topic.

In 2003, several students, including Thomas Hand '05 and Logan Duran '05 worked with Ross Dining staff to set up a filtering system for the waste fryer vegetable oil that, with some adjustments to their vehicles, allowed them to run on what is known as straight vegetable oil (SVO).  These enterprising students and environmental advocates caught the attention of the media in the summer of 2003 by purchasing and painting an old school bus, stockpiling waste veggie oil from the College's dining halls, borrowing the filtering system from Ross Dining (purchased with a campus Environmental Grant) and gathering up a dozen friends to travel across country while educating about biofuels and rock climbing.  When they were nearing the end of their fuel supply they would seek out the nearest fast food restaurant for a refill of used vegetable oil.  Their Bio Bus website, that journaled their trip, received thousands of hits.

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Information & Awareness

In support of creating effective vehicles for on-going environmental awareness across the campus, Dining Services has generously reserved the use of table tents in the dining halls for environmental information.  On a biweekly basis, the Campus Sustainability Coordinator creates a 5" x 7" card focusing on a specific environmental issue or upcoming event that are placed by dining hall staff in clear acrylic holders on every table.

To highlight the locally harvested, certified wood used in the Ross Dining Hall, Dining Services dedicated prime wall space for the development of a large permanent photo exhibit of the harvesting, processing and installation of the paneling, flooring and furniture.

In their retail operation at The Grille, Dining Services has three public dish sorting stations with clearly marked receptacles for compost, recyclables, dishware, and trash.  An poster adjacent to the food pick up area, provides examples of the types of things belonging in each receptacle.

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Dedicated Staff