Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tucked away in the corner of the KU Dining Services’ kitchen in the Kansas Union is a large, powder blue, industrial elevator.
Most days, the elevator carries staff and food between levels. But in the summer and fall months, the elevator serves a different purpose: it allows KU Dining staff to reach a rooftop garden and harvest herbs and vegetables for daily specials on campus.
Janna Traver, executive chef for KU Dining, harvests herbs and vegetables used on campus dishes Wednesday at the Kansas Union. Her Union Rooftop Garden began last year to make food production more sustainable and increase purchasing of local produce.
Planted in the corner of the roof overlooking Smith Hall, behind a brown, iron gate, are whiskey barrels overflowing with sage and other garden herbs. On the right are white buckets with vines climbing up wires, sprouting with bell peppers, jalapeños and tomatoes.
And it all goes into the food on campus.
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KU Dining now uses fresh produce grown on top of the Kansas Memorial Union for food served in its dining facilities.
“Over the last two years, we’ve been watching the distances our food travels more closely,” said Janna Traver, executive chef with KU Dining Services.
Traver said she began the Union Rooftop Garden last year in an effort to make the department more sustainable.
Around that same time, Traver started going to the local Farmers’ Market and communicating with farmers throughout Kansas.
She said the effort to support local food had doubled since last year. Now, about 10 percent of KU Dining Services’ purchases are locally grown or processed.
She said it purchased local produce from three main vendors: Tomato Allie and Pendleton’s Country Market in Lawrence, and Britt’s Garden Acres in Manhattan.
Traver said most of the dishes with local food were offered in Impromptu Cafe and KU Catering as a way to jump-start the University’s initiative. The local food in these dishes range from zucchini and watermelon to buffalo meat and tortillas.
Here are some of the local food dishes offered at Impromptu Cafe:
- The Watermelon Lemonade ($1.50) uses watermelon from Britt’s Garden Acres. - The Roasted Vegetable Press ($6.95) has zucchini and yellow squash from Lawrence’s Farmer’s Market and Sysco Corp. - The Cabo Tostadas ($8.25 with coconut crushed shrimp) uses tomatoes grown from Pendleton’s, Tomato Allie and Sysco Corp., and tortillas processed in Kansas City. - The fresh fruit that comes with the Quiche of the Day ($6) has peaches from Missouri and Kansas. - The buffalo meat for the Buffalo Slider ($8.25) comes from Lonestar Bison Ranch, in Lonestar.
— Janna Traver, executive chef with KU Dining Services
She said she also used Missouri pecans for desserts and salads throughout campus as well as popcorn for catering from Schlaegel’s in Whiting.
Heather Whitten, Eudora sophomore and server at Impromptu Cafe, said she always mentioned to customers when a dish used local food in it.
“When people find out a dish has local food, it’s exciting for them and they’re more likely to order it,” she said.
And Traver said the local purchases would only increase in the coming years.
That’s because KU Dining Services switched vendors July 1 to Sysco Corp. The change was both an effort to save money and to participate in the Sysco Corp.’s progressive approach toward local food purchases, she said.
Sysco Corp.’s initiative, called “Buy Fresh, Buy Local,” helps larger food operations connect with vendors in the region to reduce the miles over which the food is shipped and to support local farms. Traver said the University’s partnership through Sysco Corp. was called Good Natured Family Farms, a co-op of 18 family farms out of Kansas and Missouri.
She said the partnership had helped KU Dining Services secure more locally grown produce. She also said it had started discussions with local dairy farmers to get cheese and milk on campus.
To help KU Dining Services continue to move in the direction of getting local food on campus, KU Environs has created a committee called Local Food and Sustainable Dining. KU Environs is a student organization that advocates responsible environmental practices on campus, throughout Lawrence and surrounding areas.
“In buying local, you’re helping the environment and making sure that your food doesn’t contain pesticides or any harmful chemicals from the environment,” Margaret Tran, Derby senior and one of the committee coordinators, said. “It’s also helping the local economy by supporting local businesses and growers. It serves your health. I could go on and on.”
Tran said the KU Environs committee had two goals: bring more local, natural food to campus and make students aware of the local initiatives already available.
She said even she didn’t know the extent of the University’s local food purchases until last week, when she learned the tomatoes she got in her salad from the Underground were from Tomato Allie or Sysco Corp.
“Students should be more aware of local food options on campus,” Tran said. “It’s about allowing people to have decisions about what they eat.”
— — Edited by Anna Kathagnarath
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