Restaurant Ops

restaurantops

In recent years, UWM Restaurant Operations has brought Fair Trade coffee to its Grind coffee shops, expanded its vegetarian and vegan options, teamed up with local farm auctions, and expanded healthy, natural options in RESTOR. These have all been value-added additions to their selections.

In an effort to become even more sustainable, UWM Restaurant Operations has initiated the concept of Living, Operating, Consuming, and Acquiring Locally. The LOCAL concept offers students an opportunity to live and consume locally by participating in the food service programs and notice the steps taken by UWM to procure and promote local products and business. The local brand is marketed on the produce, prepared foods and equipment that fall under the LOCAL concept. Some examples of how Restaurant Operations is applying its LOCAL concept is buying cheese from Vern’s Cheese in Door County, utilizing Wisconsin Catering companies by buying select meats for special meals from Bunzel’s Meat Market, and changing its soy milk to Kikkoman Pearl located here in Wisconsin, just to name a few.

Restaurant Operations has also been an essential part of the new Sandburg Gardens and is growing a variety of produce to be used in everyday meal planning at Sandburg.

Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin
LOCAL
Starting in 2008, Restaurant Operations supplemented its produce purchase with fresh vegetables from Badgerland Produce Co-op. Shrinking the average “food mile” from 1,500-2,500 miles down to 178 miles not only reduces the amount of fossil fuels need to transport it, but it also helps the local economy.  UWM has utilized a variety of Wisconsin farm auctions over the years since.