The Andover community will notice more green and local options at Paresky Commons this fall. The dining hall is currently under the process of increasing sustainability through purchasing organic and humanely raised food. The new Paresky Commons initiatives are a result of the combined efforts of Aramark and the Phillips Academy Senior Administrative Council. The ideas behind these changes emerged in 2008 during a weekly meeting with Andover’s Sustainability Committee. The changes that were discussed included initiatives for improved sustainability, the removal of trays from meals, and composting and energy measures built into the building. Mike Giampa, Operations Manager for Paresky Commons, said, “Once we got accustomed to all the new changes, the next, natural step was the food.” “Since we had already been talking about upgrading the food for years, I was asked to put together a sustainable platform with the costs associated. I went ahead and put together three levels of sustainability, in three separate tiers,” said Giampa. “I presented to Steve Carter, John Rogers, Maureen Nunez, Trish Russell, and we tweaked it from there. They presented it to the Senior Administrative Council, who approved it.” The three tiers of the platform all concern improvements in the quality and sustainability of various food items. Phillips Academy and Aramark will equally fund the increase in budget. Giampa said, “A big hurdle to becoming increasingly sustainable was getting more money for the budget, since organic food and humanely raised food is more expensive that basic commodity-type foods.” “It’s an investment in our youth, our students, our faculty and everyone who eats at Paresky Commons. It’s also an investment in the Earth,” he continued. Paresky Commons has already implemented most of the first tier changes of the sustainability platform. These primarily include increasing the number of sustainable food items. “We’re about 80 percent there,” said Giampa. According to Giampa, Paresky Commons now exclusively uses High Lawn milk, which is natural and hormone-free. In addition, all organic yogurt is now supplied by Stony Field Farms while all eggs will be cage free from free range poultry. Paresky Commons added a number of local, organic and all natural ingredients to its menu cycle and reduced the amount of other products, such as beef. Additionally, Paresky Commons plans to begin cutting fries by hand to improve quality, serving Perfecto’s bagels on weekends to support a local business, replace previously used Australian lamb with lamb from New England and use pure Maple syrup. “The only things we’re hung up on are our all natural deli meats. We made a special order and they shipped out some, but now we’re waiting for a back order,” said Giampa. Giampa said that Paresky Commons expects to provide all natural and hormone free ham, roast beef and turkey at the Paresky Deli Bar. “I think it’s going wonderfully, although we still need to do some work and some marketing and let the public now,” said Giampa. “A great thing is that we already procured our local vendor, which is a big deal for us. North Star Farm out of Westport, MA is growing vegetables and produce for us exclusively. We’ve already received first shipment of tomatoes, three heirloom varieties, seedless cucumbers, red and green peppers, zucchinis and yellow squash,” he continued. Paresky Commons will buy produce from North Star Farm in order to source locally grown vegetables year-round. “This actually happened just through a casual conversation. Someone told me about a small farm that was growing more than they could sell. I got in contact with them and we set up this deal,” said Giampa. Aramark and Paresky Commons plan to move on to the second phase of their sustainability project in the next school year with major changes to meals offered. Current goals include converting “factory-farmed” poultry such as chicken and turkey to humanely raised, all-natural options. Similar changes will apply to beef products, with shifts to local, grass fed beef from New England. Giampa said, “I think [this first phase] is just the tip of the iceberg and the beginning of something new. Ideally, we would like to offer local and organic food and humanely raised proteins all the time.” “You would be able to walk into Paresky Commons and not have any types of corn syrup anywhere. Everything that you would eat there would be good for you and grown and raised in sustainable ways. The big thing I want to get out is how excited we are to do this for the community and be a leader for sustainable foods. We’re hoping to be at the forefront of this evolution,” he added.
