Lawrence University's new food service gives a boost to Fox Valley economy

Young family dairy company gains retail and academic customers

By Maureen Wallenfang • Post-Crescent staff writer • February 14, 2010

APPLETON — Lawrence University's new food service operator is attempting to give as much of its $4 million annual food budget to local farms and dairies as it can.

And it's not always easy.

Bon Appetit, the new operator that started July 1, has a mission to serve healthy foods made from scratch using sustainable, socially conscious ingredients. It tries to buy those ingredients from as many local sources as possible.

Alan Shook, executive chef, and Julie Severance, general manager, were put in charge of Bon Appetit's operation at Lawrence, and they began searching for local resources as soon as they arrived, starting by scouting the Downtown Appleton Farm Market.

“We call it ‘farm to fork,’” said Severance, a Wisconsin native, on the company-wide initiative to buy local products. “We're going to the local farmer and asking them if they can provide us what we need, and then it's coming to the students immediately.”

From Shook's perspective, buying local has great advantages.

“It's the quality. It's the freshness of the product. It's knowing what the product is and being able to call the person (who produced or grew it),” he said. “It's keeping everything here and putting back into the community.”

Plus, he said, “You're not going to get squeaky cheese from California.”

Because this is Wisconsin, and winter severely curtails the availability of many local ingredients, the university gets the bulk of its supplies from traditional food sources and suppliers. All of the produce comes from North America, including California. They try to not fly in ingredients.

Teaching the students about eating in season is important as well.

“The way I look at it is 100 years ago people (in winter) didn't get strawberries and bananas and kiwis, but they were still eating a lot and it wasn't a problem,” Shook said. “It's going back to what's here and utilizing different cooking techniques.”

Beans, parsnips and sweet potatoes might be roasted, glazed or gratined.

Local buying

Because they're still early in the process of buying locally, no more than 5 percent of the total food purchase comes from the area.

Some farmers they approached balked at the prospect of supplying the university.

“A lot of the people we approach don't have the resources to provide us with feeding 2,000 students a day,” Severance said. “When Alan first approached Venneford Farms, she (Beth Rogers, a member of the family that owns the Clintonville farm) was pretty gun-shy. But then we said we're not asking you to provide it every night. Maybe once a month.”

“A lot of people say, ‘We don't do that kind of volume,’” Shook said. “Venneford butchers just two steers a month.”

Venneford Farms did end up selling its grass-fed, dry-aged beef to the university once a month, and the account has proven to be its saving grace this winter, which has been even slower than normal because of the economy.

“The winter months are tough,” said Rogers. “The economy is starting to get to the point where a lot of farmers are saying, ‘Are we going to give this up or keep going?' With this (Lawrence business), it will take up the slack. It sure does make us more comfortable with the decision of going on.”

Rogers said Lawrence's business is adding about 20 percent to her sales.

Red Barn Family Farms in Appleton says Lawrence's business has been crucial.

“Lawrence University has been hugely important to us as a business,” said Paula Homan, Red Barn's co-owner with husband Terry. “We have a soft spot in our hearts for the university because it was willing to give us a start in the institutional market. Red Barn Family Farms simply would not be where it is today had Lawrence not given us that chance.

“Lawrence/Bon Appetit also is important to us volume-wise because we are able to use more milk from small family farms that meet standards of excellence in animal husbandry and milk quality. We're all about preserving those kinds of farms in our state. Also, a large account like Lawrence/Bon Appetit helps us operate more efficiently and keep our prices down.”

Red Barn began selling to Lawrence before Bon Appetit took over, but since the transition has increased its business. This year, it also began selling milk in the upstairs retail shops.

Another vendor set up right in the dining hall's kitchen when asked for a large quantity of breaded cheese curds.

“From the beginning, we wanted local cheese curds,” Shook said. “We arranged to have them (Malcore) come in and set up their sheeter and make them here with help the of the students. We made between 200 and 300 pounds that first night.“

They don't do it on campus now, but Lawrence continues to buy curds from Malcore.

“They probably go through 50 pounds of breaded cheese curds a week,” said Mike Faucett, co-owner of Malcore.

Overall, he says his business with Lawrence “has probably doubled” since Bon Appetit started buying from him.

Over in Kaukauna, Sprangers Orchard ships 20 bushels of apples and four bushels of pears at a time to Lawrence in season, said owner Roger Sprangers.

“It's a good account,” he said. “It's the only other place we sell.”

Sprangers also sells his low-spray fruit at his orchard on County KK.

Student Reaction

Students may or many not notice that an ingredient is local. Severance said they try to label local items so that students become aware.

Red Barn has its logo on the milk dispensers. The pizza station lists Krohn's cheese out of Luxemburg.

“Those who are truly interested love it. Many don't care,” Severance said. “The other night when we had beef from Venneford Farm, we got a lot of reaction. It's a grass-fed beef, which most people are not used to, and it has a different flavor than normal beef. The reaction was mixed. A lot of students enjoyed it and others said, ‘Why does it taste so weird?’”

The milk, on the other hand, has been universally embraced, she said, because of its flavor.

“I think if we ever took Red Barn away from them they'd freak out,” Severance said.

Austin Federa, a freshman from Amherst, Mass., is one of students who likes the local angle.

“The fact that they make an effort to buy local is good. They can afford to care about sustainability and local food operators,” he said. “I have a problem with the institutional factory farming process.”

Another student, Caitlin Buhr, a freshman from Madison, appreciates the lower environmental impact that local products offer.

“Less transport means less greenhouse gas,” she said.

Greater challenges

Bon Appetit Management Company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., serves food clients on both coasts, plus a swath of the Midwest. Its clients are primarily private universities, businesses, including Google, and museums, like The Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Art Institute of Chicago.

While it mixed local ingredients into the menu right from the start of its Lawrence contract, it poses an annual “eat local challenge” to all its 400 food operations around the country that mandates one food station serve only food grown or produced within 150 miles. Last fall, that challenge day was Sept. 29, just two weeks after the Lawrence operation started operating.

“We did bison from a Seymour farm,” Severance said. “The students have a student-run farm called SLUG (Sustainable Lawrence University Garden) and all the vegetables came from there that day. It had local potatoes.”

“The other trick with that was you couldn't use olive oil or sugar,” said Shook, noting that those ingredients, as well as spices, aren't grown here.

“I used Door County cherry juice reduced down to its sugar components and used that to sweeten,” Shook said.

“The point is that we try to do this as much as we can on a daily basis. That is just a one-day blow-out,” said Severance.

Future

It's a long process finding farms and growers who can supply the university and meet its sustainable, organic, antibiotic-free and hormone-free goals.

But both Severance and Shook say they'd like to find more suppliers from the area.

“We would love to find a pork supplier,” she said.

“And chicken,” Shook added.

“And fish,” she said. “Even smoked fish or white fish.”

“I'm working on a single-source yogurt that I'm really excited about,” Shook said. “They could theoretically supply all our yogurt needs. No additives. No nothing. Just pure.”

No doubt that supplier is scrambling to figure out how increase his capacity. The order is big. Besides the yogurt served in the dining hall, Severance said, “we sell at least 150 to 175 yogurt parfaits a day up in the grill.”

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Maureen Wallenfang: 920-993-1000, ext. 287, or mwallenfang@postcrescent.com