The Daily Tar Heel

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: State & National

Media Credit: DTH/Cassie Butler Fair, Local and Organic Foods, co-founded by David Hamilton (left), gathers near the Pit to raise awareness about social, environmental and

When seniors David Hamilton and Sally Lee saw Smithfield Foods listed as a sustainable source of campus food on the Carolina Dining Services Web site last fall, they took it as a sign that CDS could use a new definition of sustainable.



Smithfield, with a processing facility 110 miles away in Tar Heel, fits the bill because it is technically a local company, defined by CDS as one within a 150-mile radius of Chapel Hill. But its practices - the way it confines animals, disposes of waste and treats its workers - have curried broad opposition from critics, including UNC professors and an international human rights group.

So Hamilton, Lee and a group of similarly concerned friends created FLO Foods. It stands for Fair, Local and Organic, and it's sparked a dialogue that has CDS re-examining how it wields its huge institutional buying power.

"Initially we thought it was going to be us versus the man," Lee said of the group's founding intent to take on CDS. But when group members met with Scott Myers, director of food and vending for CDS, they found he was eager to set more sustainable buying practices in motion but lacked much of the logistical know-how to touch base with local farmers.

Though FLO has begun to help CDS forge those connections, another obstacle has been the sometimes spotty communication between CDS and its distributors.

Myers didn't realize until last semester the full extent of CDS' dependency on Smithfield products, since the corporation owns dozens of brand names. In October, for example, the Raleigh-based distributor Sysco Food Services listed only a fraction of the approximately $25,000 CDS spent on pork as going to Smithfield, but the rest went to Tyson Foods, a Smithfield brand.

"We're still trying to nail down the system where we know in advance where stuff is coming from," Myers said, stressing that CDS has been working this semester to perfect that tracking system. "Any kind of improvement and knowledge that we get in that area can typically help us with more sustainable initiatives."

An example lies in CDS' growing cooperation with its produce distributor, FreshPoint Inc., to buy from local farms. The percentage of produce bought locally jumped from 2006 to 2007, and Myers said he expects that trend to continue as CDS learns more about local growing seasons and buying networks.

He said the FLO Food Week in November was a good jumping point for CDS to make contacts with local farmers and with organizations such as N.C. Choices, which works to create local food production chains by linking farmers, processors, distributors and consumers. FLO has been in touch with N.C. Choices to determine the feasibility of making CDS pork purchases more sustainable.

The conversation is ongoing, but so far the group has suggested buying sausage from Orange County's Parker Farms for the weekends and buying Italian sausage from Breezy Oaks Farm in Mebane for occasional dinners. Already CDS has introduced more sustainable pork this semester by bringing Q Shack, a barbecue vendor that serves local pork and produce, to Lenoir Mainstreet.

It's difficult to enact more immediate and sweeping purchasing changes because CDS' pork demand is too high for local farmers to meet 100 percent because they currently lack the organization and production levels of industrial growers.

Steve Wing, a UNC epidemiology professor, said that if CDS began supporting local and independent hog farmers, its institutional buying power would make sustainable farming a more realistic business pursuit.

"It would make it more affordable to produce with less detriment to the environment and health," he said.

That kind of purchasing power is not unique to UNC, and CDS is not alone in its search for sustainable food alternatives. Joe Spina, executive director of the National Association of College & University Food Services, called it "the most salient public policy issue dining services are dealing with right now."

FLO and CDS face a challenge seen on campuses across the country because students often aren't aware of food issues, and even those involved in the movement have yet to establish a common goal and a uniform definition of sustainable food.

"I think the whole industry is learning as we go," Myers said.



Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools