College rises to Real Food Challenge

“I am thrilled to be a part of the solution to our troubled food system,” says Benjamin Newcomb, chef manager at Marlboro through Metz Culinary Management. In April, Ben and President Ellen signed the Real Food Campus Commitment, joining more than 100 colleges and universities across the country. The commitment promises that Marlboro will procure at least 20 percent of the food consumed on campus from local or community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane food sources— “real food”—by 2020.

“Colleges like Marlboro have to show leadership in our communities by modeling ways to support ecologically sustainable, humane, and socially equitable food systems,” says Ellen. The primary goal of the Real Food Challenge is to shift $1 billion of existing college and university food budgets away from industrial farms and junk food and toward real food. “Investing in real food not only benefits the daily lives of our students, but also fosters community by supporting the livelihoods of family farmers and other local producers.”

Marlboro’s commitment includes initiating a student-led assessment of campus food procurement using the Real Food Calculator, a tool that uses independently verifiable criteria in four categories: community-based/local, fair, ecologically sound, and humane. The challenge also includes a commitment to adopt a comprehensive real food policy, with a multiyear action plan and annual benchmarks.

“The Real Food Challenge permits us to create a fair, sustainable food culture that celebrates the student, the local farmer, and the best of what New England agriculture has to offer—farm to table,” says Ben. The signing of the commitment was followed by a community dinner of mostly regional or ecologically sound foods, part of Marlboro’s events leading up to Earth Day.