The Fellows Program10TH ANNIVERSARY IMPACT REPORT, 2019
THE BON APPÉTIT FELLOWS PROGRAM
In 2009 Bon Appétit Management Company began hiring recent graduates from higher education campuses we serve for a fellowship program that’s part real-world food-systems education and part idea incubator. The Fellows join Bon Appétit as full-time employees, for stints of one to two years, to learn about what our vision for “food service for a sustainable future” truly means — and what goes into making it a reality.
“The Bon Appétit Fellowship provided me with the opportunity to holistically understand the relationships, opportunities, and challenges that go into making more sustainable food purchasing decisions."
—Autumn Rauchwerk, Fellow 2015-2016
WHAT FELLOWS DO
The Fellows provide peer-to-peer education. They speak from experience, and from the heart. The Fellows were sustainability champions on their campuses. They’ve asked the same hard questions as today’s students, and they’ve helped create solutions. They can have frank conversations that other corporate representatives can't.
“In our current information age, we’re quick to canonize or vilify, to place things into one of those two opposing categories of 'good' or 'evil’ to make the world around us simpler. But the truth is, the world is much more complicated than that.”
—Piper Fernwey, Fellow 2011-2013
FELLOWS BUILD BRIDGES FROM FARM TO CAFé TO CONSUMER
FELLOWS SPREAD FOOD LITERACY
In the decade since the program started in 2009, Fellows have conducted an estimated:
200+ FARM TO FORK VENDOR VISITS
140+ KITCHEN TOURS
500+ CLASSROOM GUEST LECTURES AND DISCUSSIONS
1,200+ STUDENT GROUP AND SUSTAINABILITY STAFF MEETINGS
50+ HEALTHY KIDS IN THE BON APPÉTIT KITCHEN CLASSES
500+ OTHER EDUCATIONAL EVENTS FOR STUDENTS & STAFF
FELLOWS CONDUCT IMPORTANT RESEARCH AND SUPPORT INITIATIVES
such as....
Coauthored with United Farm Workers of America and Oxfam America, this groundbreaking 2011 report detailed the lack of laws and protections for U.S. farmworkers
Supporting students who want to grow food on their college campuses and connecting them to each other, since 2009
Surveying chefs to uncover regional challenges and opportunities for meeting and/or exceeding the company’s 20% Farm to Fork local commitment
Investigating sustainability labels and deciding how to integrate Farm to Fork partners into a new dual global/local coffee commitment
Working with the Natural Resource Defense Council, tracking the quantity and causes of plate waste from over 12,000 individuals
From Fellow to…
The Bon Appetit Fellowship is also shaping future changemakers.
A Fellow from 2009-2010, Dayna founded Nettle Valley Farm in Spring Grove, MN, where she raises pastured pork on 67 acres and fights against industrial-scale confined animal feeding operations.
Claire Cummings’ research into food waste during her 2012-2014 fellowship led to her appointment as Bon Appétit’s first waste manager. She has since helped launch the Imperfectly Delicious Program and Bon Appétit’s proprietary kitchen waste management tool, On Track, companywide.
After her 2016-2018 Fellowship, Claire Kelloway became the lead researcher and reporter for the newsletter Food & Power, which looks at how monopolization and economic concentration impact food producers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.
THE STUDENT ACTIVIST GRANT CONTEST
In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Fellows program, we gave away ten $1,000 grants to student groups with compelling projects to improve food system sustainability, like the Ag Co-Op at Goucher College (above).