Excerpts from an article from the CALS newsroom, Home Grown: Cornell Dining Serves Up Locally Grown CALS Produce. Special thanks to Steve, Melissa and others who help get the food from the farm to campus.
“As part of the Farms-to-Dining Initiative, Cornell chefs are now using produce grown at Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station farms near campus. This past growing season, CUAES’ Homer C. Thompson Research Farm near Freeville and Campus Areas Farms devoted several acres of idle farmland that was not needed for CALS’ research to fill Cornell Dining’s desire to include home-grown vegetables in the two million meals served annually in the popular all-you-care-to-eat dining halls on campus.
“’It is food grown at Cornell for Cornell; you can’t get more sustainable than that,’ says Senior Executive Chef Steve Miller. …
“’Getting local food at Cornell has required hard work on the part of a lot of people,’ says Melissa Madden, CUAES organic farm coordinator, who supervises the Dilmun Hill Student Farm. While Cornell Dining worked with the Dilmun Hill in the past, the student-run farm now primarily caters to Manndible Café, located in Mann Library.
“Last spring, CUAES Freeville Farm Manager Steve McKay planted a super sweet corn variety he thought students would like and by season’s end, his staff delivered 95 dozen ears to Chef Miller and others. While corn is seasonal, the longer shelf life of some of the vegetables, specifically potatoes and squash, allow them to be easily stored, packed and shipped with short notice as requested by Cornell chefs.”