Food & Living

Stanford Dining is committed to providing sustainable, locally-produced foods whenever possible and reducing food waste through composting and recycling. These efforts help decrease pollution from pesticides and chemicals, reduce energy use, support local small businesses, and provide fresh and delicious meals.

Stanford’s food choices make a difference: Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE), which includes Student Housing, Stanford Dining, Hospitality & Auxiliary Services and Stanford Conference Services, serves more than 4 million meals annually.

The largest provider of food services on campus, Stanford Dining manages about half of the food service for undergraduate residences and about 25 percent of the university’s cafés. Several other campus food services, such as co-ops, row houses and private cafés, are also committed to sustainable purchasing and practices. The Sustainability Working Team (SWT) for Food and Dining was created in 2008 to bring together various food service operators to collaborate on sustainability programs campus-wide.

Recognition

• Stanford Hospitality and Auxiliaries: Stanford Catering Chef Andrew Mayne was an invited chef at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Cooking for Solutions” Event (2009)
• Stanford Dining: Stanford Dining’s Executive Director Eric Montell served as a judge for the Acterra Sustainability Awards (2008 and 2009)
• Stanford University: “A” for Food and Recycling, Sustainable Endowments Institute College Sustainability Report Card (2007 and 2008)
• Stanford Dining: Acterra Business Environmental Award for Sustainability (2007)
• Stanford Dining: one of the first university food service operations in the United States certified as a green business by Santa Clara County (2004)