College of the Atlantic, ME Farm to Food

Type: Policy

Status: Ongoing

Source File: http://www.coa.edu/print/farmtofood.htm

Description:

COA honors a healthy food system through its support and purchase of local, organic foods. Blair Dining Hall, commonly known as Take-A-Break, offers a range of food items to meet a variety of diet preferences and special needs.

When available the kitchen strives to use local, organic food products.

Beech Hill Farm, the college's organic farm, provides a wide range of seasonal vegetables for our salad bar and side dishes for COA, local schools and the wider community. Local children frequently come to the farm from surrounding schools to learn how food, especially organic food, is grown.

Other food items come from Maine co-ops and other organic and local sources.

Food "waste" from the kitchen is composted in the college's community garden and at Beech Hill Farm.

Meats: 70% free-range, as locally-raised and organic as possible
Coffee: organic and fair trade only
Dairy: hormone-free
Eggs: cage-, hormone- and antibiotic-free
Beans, grains and vegetable protein: organic when available
Water: to preserve our watersheds, COA does not offer individual bottles of water at campus events