The multinational food service giant Sodexo has created a program to increase locally sourced products the company provides to Vermont colleges and other institutions.
The company says it hopes to build on an effort that resulted in the purchase of roughly $16 million in local food products last year.
State officials, including Governor Peter Shumlin, lauded what Sodexo calls its “Vermont First” program at an event at Vermont Technical College featuring an assortment of the Vermont products the company already purchases.
Sodexo provides meals to the University of Vermont, the state colleges, and other schools and institutions. The company serves 34,000 meals daily in Vermont.
"The Vermont community wants different, and we recognize that." - Sodexo Regional Vice President of Campus Services Phil Harty
Sodexo Regional Vice President of Campus Services Phil Harty says the Vermont First program formalizes an effort that began four years ago when the University of Vermont requested locally sourced foods. Since then, he says the company has been meeting with state officials, producers and distributors.
He says the announcement this week formalizes what has been an evolving process. Harty says some producers choose not to wholesale their products, but others are able to make it work and produce the quantities Sodexo needs.
Now the company will hire a local food coordinator to work with producers to increase the amount of Vermont products it buys.
“There’s so much that goes on that it’s going to take a little bit more dedication,” he says. “We see the conversations start, stop, get derailed, start again and move on. This commitment is to focus more on those conversations.”
Harty says Sodexo will also develop metrics to track and report its progress. In most cases, Sodexo is purchasing Vermont products from wholesalers like Black River Produce, and not directly from producers.
Garty says in many cases Sodexo could purchase products for less outside of state, but Harty says the company is responding to demand from the institutions it serves.
“The Vermont community wants different and we recognize that,” says Harty.
Beyond challenges like price and scale of production, Vermont Agency of Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross says to get to this point also required a change in Sodexo’s institutional thinking.
"It's a change in the culture inside a company that, quite frankly, has been used to doing business one way. And now we're suggesting, 'here's a new way you could do business ... That's part of why this is so incredible. This is a multinational corporation." - Vermont Agency of Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross
“It’s a change in the culture inside a company that quite frankly has been used to doing business one way and now we’re suggesting, ‘here’s a new way you could do business’,” says Ross. “Those things take time no matter the size of business, but they in particular can be a challenge for a large business like this. That’s part of why this is so incredible. This is a multinational corporation.”
Ross says Sodexo’s commitment to locally sourced food accelerates the state’s progress toward a goal of getting 20 percent of its food from local sources.
Sodexo, which is based in France, operates in 90 countries.
