Purchasing

UMass Dining has over 22,000 students on the meal plan and serves more than 6 million meals annually. As a result, we have a unique opportunity to source foods and products that are socially and ecologically responsible.

There are three major drivers for our decision to purchase locally and responsibly:

Sustainability - We value environmental stewardship and hope to positively impact our community.
Customer Satisfaction - We take an interest in our customers’ wants, and have welcomed the challenge from our students to increase our purchasing of Real Food.
Price - By using creative purchasing strategies, we find that many locally sourced items are competitively priced with items that we are able to source from mainstream vendors.

Some of our purchasing highlights are below:

Local Sourcing Milestones

We work with 2 main distributors, Performance Food Group (PFG) and FreshPoint, who provide us with local and/or sustainable produce, meat, value-added products, and non-food items.
We purchase from over 100 small local farms and businesses.
We source produce from the UMass Student Farm (Amherst, MA) and our on-campus UMass Permaculture gardens (Amherst, MA).
Joe Czajkowski Farm (Hadley, MA), just 2 miles from campus, aggregates from 10-20 local farms to maximize our local produce orders.

UMass Student Farmers dressed as veggies and advertising the UMass Student Farmers Market where they distribute their CSA shares.

Xochiquetzal Salazar (pictured back right), the manager of the UMass Permaculture Initiative, at Franklin Permaculture Garden on campus.

Local Sourcing Highlights

Free range turkeys sourced from Diemand Farm (20 miles from campus)
Milk sourced locally from Mapleline Farm (3 miles from campus) and High Lawn Farm (60 miles from campus)
Apples peaches, and pears purchased from the UMass Cold Spring Orchard (14 miles from campus) and Kielbasa Orchards (5 miles from campus) when in season
Soy milk sourced through Vermont Soy, located in northern Vermont
Some free range local chicken sourced within 250 miles from campus for use in Hampshire Dining Commons rotisserie
Cage-free regional, heirloom hard shell eggs purchased from Pete and Gerry’s (150 miles from campus)
All pizza dough used in our four Dining Commons is organic and made locally by Angy’s Landolfi Food Group (25 miles from campus)
Spring rolls are hand-rolled locally from Great Wall using seasonal vegetables when available (10 miles from campus)
When in season, many of our Asian vegetables are sourced from Jiang Farm (11 miles from campus) and Chang and Sons Enterprises, Inc. (10 miles from campus)
Source honey from Warm Colors Apiary (10 miles from campus) and McLure’s Honey and Maple (166 miles from campus)
Most local maple syrup is sourced from the North Hadley Sugar Shack (5 miles from campus)
Source ice cream from Maple Valley Creamery (2 miles from campus) and Snow’s Ice Cream (18 miles from campus)

Apple, Brie and Walnut Crostini served with UMass Cold Spring Orchard apples in Hampshire Dining Commons.

Mapleline Farm cows in Amherst, MA. Mapleline Farm milk is served year-round in Hampshire Dining Commons.

Waste Reduction

All to-go dishware and cutlery (including plates, bowls, cups, mugs, silverware, straws, tea bags, chopsticks, etc.) are compostable
All napkins are compostable and made from recycled paper
Coffee stirrers are compostable and made of wood instead of plastic
Plastic bag ban in all dining locations

Culinary Techniques

50/50 blended burger of mushroom and beef created through partnership with the Mushroom Council to increase nutrition, decrease red meat consumption, and lower costs
Underutilized fish species offered through innovative menu engineering, such as dogfish tacos
Individually quick frozen (IQF) techniques allow chefs to prepare local fruit for specialty desserts throughout any season

Strawberry shortcake made with local, individually quick frozen (IQF) strawberries.

Our Better Burger, made from a 50/50 mushroom/beef blend to decrease red meat consumption.

Contracts and Bidding Practices

We have an agreement with our prime produce vendor that locally and regionally sourced items should be used first before sourcing elsewhere.
There is a stipulation in our request for bids (RFB) for produce distributors and prime vending to follow Real Food Challenge guidelines.
In the contract with our produce distributors, we are allowed a certain percentage of produce to be sourced independently by local farms of our choice.

Third Party Certifications

We use Seafood WATCH guidelines to source sustainable seafood.
We receive Certified Organic products from Albert’s Organics (Chesterfield, NH), Atlas Farm (South Deerfield, MA), GrandyOats (Hiram, ME), Jiang Farm (Montague, MA) , Joe Czajkowski Farm (Hadley, MA), Johnathan’s Sprouts (Rochester, MA), Maine Family Farms (Portland, ME), Mi Tierra (Hadley, MA), Pete and Gerry’s Eggs (Monroe, NH), Queen’s Greens (Amherst, MA), Sidehill Farm (Hawley, MA), Stonyfield (Londonderry), UMass Student Farm (Amherst, MA), and Winter Moon Roots Farm (Hadley, MA).
Joe Czajkowski Farm (Hadley, MA) and Queen’s Greens (Amherst, MA) are GAP certified.
Maine Family Farms (Portland, ME) and Walden Local Meat Co. (Burlington, MA) are Animal Welfare Approved.
Niman Ranch and Pete and Gerry’s Eggs (Monroe, NH) are Certified Humane.
We serve shade-grown, organic, or fair trade coffee in all campus dining commons and retail locations.

High tunnels at Queen's Greens, a GAP certified farm that supplies UMass Dining with tasty organic greens.

Alaskan King Salmon, a sustainable choice according to Seafood WATCH guidelines.