Campus Commits to Real Food

On Wednesday, March 13, President Marvin Krislov and Dean of Students Eric Estes signed the Real Food Campus Commitment, thus pledging to adopt a comprehensive real food policy and multiyear action plan to achieve the goal of buying 40 percent real food by 2020.

“Despite a growing interest in local, organic, and sustainable food on campuses, little consensus exits on what makes food truly ‘good’ and too little substantive coordination occurs between schools and industry players,” reads the Real Food Challenge website. “The commitment will eliminate the need to ‘go it alone’ and instead knit together these separate efforts into a supportive, productive network.”

The signing took place on the steps of Wilder Hall at 4 p.m. with conservatory senior Kevin Dee, who spearheaded the movement for the RFC at Oberlin, and representatives from various student organizations including Slow Food Oberlin, Oberlin Animal Rights, the Environmental Concerns Committee, and the Responsible Investing Organization.

A discussion of the RFC and the college’s dining services, run by the Bon Appétit Management Company, took place after the signing.

Signing the Real Food Campus Commitment “reflects our values as a community: fair, sustainable, humane, and local,” says Eric Pecherkiewicz, campus dietitian for Bon Appetit. “This shows far-reaching support for RFC, and recognizes that Oberlin cares where its food comes from and how it was produced.”