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Through a partnership with Feed BC, Kwantlen Polytechnic University cafeterias are serving produce grown by students.
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Kwantlen partnering with Feed BC
Published 1:00 PDT, Tue March 22, 2022
Last Updated: 1:15 PDT, Tue March 22, 2022
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Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) has partnered with Feed BC and food service provider Compass-Chartwells to bring fresh, organic produce, grown by KPU faculty and students, to cafeterias across the university’s five campuses.
Students in KPU’s Richmond Farm School, a five-acre organic farm on the Garden City Lands, grow crops as part of their degree in sustainable agriculture. They gain hands-on farming experience and play a role in the planning, planting, maintenance, and harvesting required to bring produce from farm to table.
“Feed BC is a program to not only encourage buying food grown locally but to also help those growers and producers of these local products to connect with us, create those channels, and ultimately supply us with their produce,” says KPU executive director of facilities services David Stewart.
The Institute for Sustainable Food Systems (ISFS) at KPU is a major resource for the university’s partnership with Feed BC, offering experiential learning to students of the Richmond Farm School and the Tsawwassen First Nation Farm School. ISFS also supports regional food systems by providing information and support for farmers, communities, and local businesses.
Together with ISFS, KPU students and faculty will be able to collaborate between the farms and cafeterias to create fresh and localized menus based on what is being grown on the farms.
“It couldn’t make any more sense for us to be serving fresh products, made by KPU students and faculty, in our cafeterias which feed our students and faculty,” adds Stewart.
KPU has committed to having 30 per cent of all food in campus cafeterias sourced from local suppliers, including KPU farms, catering to the desire to see more robust local-regional food systems in the province. In 2020, the department of sustainable agriculture donated $42,000 worth of produce to the Richmond Food Bank, furthering the goal to make locally grown food available where it’s produced.
"It is critically important that public post-secondary institutions contribute to the vitality and health of B.C.'s local food system by purchasing from and featuring B.C. producers," said KPU farm manager Andy Smith. "Students in the sustainable agriculture program are the future farmers of B.C. and are learning how valuable local products are in connecting with and serving communities, businesses, and creating a sustainable food system."
Elsewhere in the province, 19 other public post-secondary institutions also have partnerships with Feed BC. A searchable online directory helps institutions and commercial buyers connect with B.C. producers and processors.
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