The Real Food Challenge is a sustainable food movement that works to bring positive change to the food industry by supporting sustainable food options at Colleges and Universities across the nation. Real Food combines environmentalism, public health, and social justice in effort to define what it means to be “Real Food.” The Real Food Challenge has an extensive set of standards by which food products can qualify as Real Food. These standards work to ensure that Real Food is humane, locally sourced, ecologically sustainable, socially fair. To learn more about the Challenge nationwide, visit RealFoodChallenge.org.
A variety of institutional procurement programs encourage colleges and universities to address the impacts of food. While sustainable food system assessment tools have been studied individually, few studies have analyzed their combined role in food system transformation. We developed an agroecological framework for analyzing food system change and applied it to a case study of a private, mid-sized university pledged to climate neutrality, sustainability, and environmental justice. We used Real Food Challenge (RFC) and the Sustainability Indicator Management & Analysis Platform (SIMAP) tools to assess all campus food purchases. After reviewing 11,000+ invoices documenting food purchases by dollar, type, and weight, we calculated the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and Real Food percentages of current practices and projected six alternative scenarios. We found that the University’s food system was considered 20.7% Real and constituted 18.2% of the institution’s annual GHG emissions in 2018-19. Significantly increasing purchases of plant based food sourced from RFC sources (e.g., organic or local) could reduce GHG emissions, advance sustainability, and save money. An all vegetarian scenario reduced GHG emissions 38.0%, increased RFC 11.0%, and saved 7.7% of total cost. Although requiring significant student research time, combined RFC and SIMAP assessments can be more comprehensive and efficient. After discussing several strengths and potential improvements for both tools, our agroecological analysis suggests that institutions often use them for incremental change. However, critical food education and students’ food justice engagements could leverage these tools towards more transformational changes.
Student Researchers: Emma McCurry, Paige Whittaker
Faculty Researchers: Chris Bacon