Food for thought

Northland's Director of Food Services gets regular phone calls from other campuses asking how to make their selections more environmentally savvy. Northland's cafeteria boasts vegan and vegetarian options, sustainably harvested seafood, cage-free eggs, and organic and fair-trade choices.“Free-range Fridays” is a specialty night which features meat that is organic, grass-fed, and as local as possible. Thirty-three percent of the food in the cafeteria carries an eco-label. A portion of the produce served at the cafeteria comes from Northland's own campus garden.

The dining service provides free, reusable mugs, offering discounts on drinks if the mugs are used. Work-study students compost food scraps from the cafeteria and the residence halls, saving thousands of pounds of material annually from the landfill. The compost is used in the campus garden, where students grow food for the Outdoor Orientation trips, our "Everybody Party," and the Thanksgiving Feast. 

In the fall of 2008, Northland's cafeteria began a program called "Trayless Tuesdays" to pilot a process to minimize food waste and conserve energy. Eliminating the trays from food service saves an enormous amount of water previously used to wash the trays and encourages students, faculty, and staff to take more appropriate portion sizes for their meals reducing wasted food. After this successful pilot program, trays are no longer offered in the cafeteria.

To learn more about composting at Northland, download a .pdf version of our Sustainability Tips for Campus Living Brochure.