After recently signing a campus commitment with University President Morton Schapiro pledging to increase the amount of “real food” in Northwestern dining halls to 20 percent by 2020, Real Food at NU has begun implementing ideas to help bring the University closer to this goal.

Real Food at NU is in the first stage of putting together the Food Systems Working Group, which will hold bi-quarterly meetings between Real Food at NU, administrators, NU Dining workers and employees of Sodexo, NU’s main food provider, said Medill senior Miranda Cawley, co-director of Real Food at NU.

Cawley said the June 3 commitment has made it easier to move forward with Real Food at NU’s plans to raise the percentage of “real food,” which is defined as “ecologically sound, community-based, humanely produced or fair trade” food by the national organization Real Food Challenge.

“(The members of the working group) are going to work together to figure out the actual logistics of making this switch and drafting our food policy,” Cawley said.

McCormick junior Kara Rodby, co-director of Real Food at NU, said two analysts from Real Food at NU, Weinberg junior Kimberly Clinch and Weinberg senior Renee Schaaf, are currently working with Sodexo. The analysts ran a baseline real food calculator, an online tool designed to calculate real food percentages in a standardized way, during Spring Quarter, Rodby said.

Rachel Tilghman, director of communications and engagement for Sodexo at NU, said Clinch and Schaaf underwent training through the Real Food Challenge to be able to analyze and run the real food calculator. The calculation of “real food” on campus is on hold over the summer, but it is expected to resume once dining halls return to a regular schedule in the fall, she said.

Sodexo is running its own real food calculator in addition to the one Real Food at NU uses to measure progress on the 20 percent “real food” goal, Tilghman said. Sodexo’s real food calculator is being used as a supplement, allowing Sodexo to make internal adjustments and communicate effectively with chefs and unit managers from NU Dining, she said.

“We are able to manipulate that calculator differently than the real food calculator,” Tilghman said. “If for example, we have a ton of ‘real food’ coming out of Sargent, but not a lot coming out of another location, we will notice that in our own tracking.”

Associated Student Government has reached out to Real Food at NU and asked the group to organize Food Day, a national event created to promote a commitment to “real food” and better food policies, to be held on October 24, Rodby added. The annual Food Day at NU has previously been organized by ASG members, she said.

“We will be reaching out to other groups like Wild Roots, Points for a Purpose, Campus Kitchens, all kinds of sustainable food groups,” Rodby said. “We are really excited about that.”

Rodby said Real Food at NU will work with Sodexo to implement publicity and marketing pieces, including a “real food” icon that will be placed in dining halls to let students know which food items meet the criteria.

Cawley said Real Food at NU now has more flexibility in the kind of programming it can do on campus.

“We have some big events in the fall that we are starting to plan for,” Cawley said. “We are really interested in putting together some conversations about food on this campus.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Rachel Tilghman’s position with Sodexo at NU. The Daily regrets the error.

Email: [email protected]  
Twitter: @peterkotecki