Do you know all you need to know about teaching sustainability principles in your foodservice program?

This year’s winner of the Kendall/CAFÉ Green Award is Seattle Culinary Academy which is a division of Seattle Central Community College.  Their efforts to embed sustainable principles and practices into their curricula and student experiences began in early 2000 with sustainable kitchen practices and progressed into formalization of those practices and values in 2005 with Sustainable Food System Practices (CUL 151).  This course has been expanded into 3 one-credit courses of mandatory coursework for students in both programs:  Culinary Arts and Specialty Desserts and Breads.  Here are some of their highlights:

• One of the first  culinary schools in the nation to offer formal coursework in sustainability, highlighting the value of local and seasonal sourcing
• Additionally the program integrates health and environmental sustainability throughout the educational experience
• They believe that “Chefs are gatekeepers of the food system”
• They have a relationship with Quillisascut Farm School for the Domestic Arts where student chefs journey to learn the farm-to-table continuum
• They have developed a course entitled “Learning from the Ground Up” where every summer the CA students travel one hour north to discover the “bounties of the Skagit.”  They get their hands in the dirt at La Conner Flats learning how to plant, tend and harvest on a two acre parcel of land donated to the program.  And the produce harvested that day is incorporated into the menus back at the school.
• They have a plant science lab/green house
• They teach nose-to-tail butchery
• They have a GMO free kitchen
• They teach food preservation skills in addition to cheese making