Fighting for Sustainable Food One Mouth At A Time

The following is an article from the Civil Eats blog by Helene York who is responsible for enforcing the purchasing policy of food service company Bon Appetit. Not only must she make the difficult decisions about what “sustainable food” actually is, she also has to defend that position tooth-and-nail against skeptics and at least one of the company’s gourmet chefs who has an affinity for bluefin tuna (a fish population that’s rapidly spiraling into extinction).

Bon Appetit’s stringent purchasing policy and campaign for low-carbon diets demonstrates the company’s commitment to sustainable food.  And those decisions matter. Feeding thousands per day, the company is helping consumers make more responsible choices. Just imagine what would happen if other large food suppliers held the same standards and what impact that would have on our food system.

Here’s more from Civil Eats:

Over the last five years as I have worked to create—and yes, enforce—sustainable sourcing policies in my job, I’ve been publicly called a carbon cop, the food police, something I can’t print (my corporate Web browser even blocks access to the site) and, as of yesterday morning, an “eco-Nazi.” Most of my critics don’t know me and some of them don’t know what I do. It’s a good thing I don’t take name-calling personally!

A blogger thought yelling was an inappropriate reaction when I learned that one of our chefs posted a bluefin tuna recipe. (Yelling is bad, but calling someone an eco-Nazi isn’t?) Hey, I’m from Brooklyn. I’m not quiet and I’m going to let you know what I think. But there’s a method to my (loud-mouthed) madness.

Bon Appétit serves 120 million meals a year and our food purchasing policies can cause some big ripples in the supply chain. Lots of bloggers gripe that sustainable food tenets impinge upon their freedoms. They want to eat whatever they want. Fine. But don’t mistake a food company’s corporate purchasing policies as a judgment of individual behavior. That’s missing the point. The point is that it absolutely matters what 400 chefs serve and what foods they endorse.

More…

Related posts:

1. The Discrepancies Between Eating Local and Eating Sustainable Food
2. Sustainable Economies Law Center Provides Legal Support for Urban Agriculture Movement
3. Financiers Seeking Sustainable Farms

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