In 2007, Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon published The 100-Mile Diet, a book that chronicles their efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of their eating habits by purchasing and consuming only food products that grow within 100 miles of their home in northern British Columbia. The couple sacrificed rice, coffee and most liquors to complete the book (and still follow the  diet), which garnered international attention and lay the groundwork for a new niche of responsible diners: locavores.

The book started with a very simple question: where does my food come from?

For Ryerson students, the simple answer is this: Aramark.  Ryerson has had an exclusive contract with the company since 1993.

However, where Aramark gets the food from is more difficult to answer. There’s no literature about Ryerson’s participation in the local food movement on campus, or any indication of which farms grow the produce Ryerson students are eating.

For all students know, Ryerson’s food could be sourced anywhere from Oshawa to Oregon.

So where does the food come from? Getting the answer to this question from Aramark is no small feat – but the results may surprise even the most ardent Ryerson Food Service critic.

Making contact with Aramark

The investigation into the source of Ryerson’s food begins with a phone call to John Corallo at ancillary services, followed immediately by an email to Aramark. The phone call is never returned; the email receives a response within the hour.

The email has been passed through a succession of individuals at Aramark, from someone named Brenda Clark to someone named Paul Glover, and finally to Jennifer Marriott, Aramark’s representative at Ryerson. It’s a simple email, requesting an interview with an appropriate source at Aramark to discuss food sourcing. Marriott asks that questions be emailed to her. They are.

In the meantime, Sysco, a major southern Ontario food supplier, has been contacted on the hunch that it may supply Aramark. It does, and Karen Hurley, who works for Sysco’s Healthcare division, is very enthusiastic about the possibility of discussing local food sourcing and Sysco’s partnership with Aramark.

“We actually had a Ryerson student do an internship with us last semester, and she found that most of the foods Sysco sells are either locally sourced or sustainable in some way,” Hurley says. This is good news: according to Hurley, Aramark buys “most of its products” from Sysco. The next step is Rick Wassell, who Hurley says will have more information on the topic, including the names of some of the farms from which Sysco buys produce.

 After two days, Wassell is contacted, and mentions the name of a farm in Whitby from which Sysco buys apples. A day later, however, Wassell sends a one-line email: “Unfortunately, Ryerson does not purchase fresh apples from Sysco.” Two days after that, Wassell leaves a voicemail stating that none of Ryerson’s produce is actually purchased from Sysco.

That afternoon, Marriott leaves a message stating that she’s sent the emailed questions to Corallo for review. A phone call to Corallo is brief, and he concedes to have the answers emailed back before the end of the day. When they are, they yield some interesting results.

According, to Marriott, “approximately five per cent” of products served in Ryerson cafeterias are local, though she neglects to identify which ones, and does not respond to further requests for clarification.

Marriott also says that Aramark and Ryerson Food Service are currently involved in “Partnering with growers and distributors Canadawide to increase the purchase of local food, participating in programs for year-round purchasing for items such as tomatoes and cucumbers (hothouse) . . .  and local dairy products and eggs.”

Specific details are not  provided,  and she does not respond to a followup email or provide a phone number.

Is it just us?

A quick Internet search reveals that Aramark claims to be involved in a huge amount of sustainability initiatives, and one of the first available articles on this topic is from Trent University in Peterborough, Ont. The article discusses Applefest, an Aramark-hosted, week-long festival in 2008 that celebrated apples grown at local farms in the Kawarthas.

Richard Brown is Trent’s equivalent to Ryerson’s Jennifer Marriott, and he emails contact information for Tina Horsley, Aramark Canada’s director of wellness and sustainability,  but will not respond to phone calls.

“There are a lot of issues surrounding Aramark’s presence (here),” says Alex Nevin, a fourth-year history major at Trent. “There are no events where people can bring food to the school. It all has to be Aramark.” Nevin adds that he’s unaware of where the produce he’s eating on campus comes from.

The University of Guelph, on the other hand, seems to serve as a model for sustainable on-campus dining. “About 40 per cent of our food items are bought locally,” says U of G’s food ombudsperson Kailyn Fullerton. “One of the big things in the fall and summer is some of our buyers get up really early on Friday mornings to go to a produce auction in Elmira. And right now we still have carrots and onions that are local, and apples from Niagara, as well as free-range chicken and cage-free eggs.” The University of Guelph does not have a contract with Aramark.

Aramark opens up

The email that had been sent to Brown has been forwarded to Marriott, who  claims that that the fact that there has been difficulty having a discussion with her is “misinformation.” She suggests that further questions – which had been emailed to her one day prior – be forwarded to Corallo instead. Her email is carbon-copied to Brown and Horsley. A phone call to Marriott – whose phone number has been included in the email – is never returned.

When asked the followup questions that had been emailed to Marriott the day before – detailed information on Ryerson and Aramark’s partnerships with local farmers – Corallo didn’t have much to say.

“I don’t have the answers to those questions,” he says. “I’m not even sure if  (Marriott) would have them. The only way to get that information would be through head office.” Fortunately, Horsley is more than willing to help.

“We’ve been working with our suppliers from coast to coast to improve our local buying practices,” she says. “It’s (a process) of identifying the growers and talking to the distributors about supplying us with more local items.”

Horsley explains that in the five per cent that Marriott had previously identified as being the amount of local food on Ryerson’s campus, everything – from packaged items to bread and dairy – is taken into consideration and, because of the time of year, reflects the amount of food that’s currently in season. “Within each (individual food) category it may be higher, but because our purchases are so diverse across these categories, the per cent can seem low.”

Non-seasonal produce may be shipped in from locations across North American (and further in the case of tropical fruits like bananas), and while most of the bread on campus is baked locally, Horsley explains that Ontario is not a significant producer of grain, so the ingredients may be coming from the prairies. But as local programs grow, that percentage is likely to grow. 

Horsley promises to track down which produce wholesaler actually supplies Ryerson’s cafeterias, and to identify from which farms the distributor acquires its produce. Three days later, she supplies the name of Aramark’s produce wholesaler, A.J. Lanzarotta, and passes along the phone number of Mike Simone, A.J. Lanzarotta’s buyer.

“Ryerson has the option of buying local, but it’s ultimately up to them as to whether or not they do,” Simone says. “What we buy ultimately depends on what the customer dictates to us.”

And as it turns out, Ryerson is in fact telling A.J. Lanzarotta to buy local.

While very little Ontario produce is currently in season, Simone confirms that the cooking onions, carrots and root vegetables that Ryerson is currently purchasing are sourced from Hollancin Farms in Holland Marsh, 61 kilometres from the main campus.

 “At Ryerson, if it’s in season, it should be local,” says Horsley. “You may not be seeing a clear indication of what’s local right now, but starting next year our goal is to indicate where the produce served on campus is coming from.”

Until then, it takes a few weeks and a lot of patience to find out exactly where Ryerson students’ meal-plan food is grown. But the answers are out there and right now, at least in terms of cooking onions and root vegetables, they seem to be the right ones.