The Forge Served 41,000 Pounds of Regional Produce This Fall, a Third of Everything It Bought

Between move-in and the week before Thanksgiving, The Forge served 41,300 pounds of fruit and vegetables grown within 150 miles of campus, Dining Services reported this week. That is 34 percent of all the produce the dining hall bought this fall, by weight, up from 19 percent in fall 2023.

The largest single supplier was the university’s own University Farm east of campus, which sent 6,800 pounds: mostly butternut and acorn squash, fingerling potatoes, and apples from the small orchard. The other 34,500 pounds came from 23 growers, nearly all in Porter County and the two counties around it, most of them through a cooperative that aggregates small farms’ harvests into deliveries a dining hall can actually take.

The change came mostly from how the kitchen buys. Two years ago, The Forge signed annual contracts that left little room for small deliveries. It now holds back part of its produce budget each week for whatever regional growers have in quantity, and the menu is written around it. That is why the fall menu had squash in some form at 41 of 60 dinners.

“Nobody is going to eat local tomatoes here in February, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. But from September to November there’s no reason a dining hall in the middle of farm country should be trucking in potatoes from two thousand miles away.”

— Wade Holt, Director of Dining Services

Holt said the regional share will drop to about 12 percent over the winter and climb again from May. Dining is working with the Agricultural & Food Systems Institute on cold storage that could keep University Farm potatoes and squash on the menu into February. Seasonal sourcing numbers will be added to the campus sustainability reporting starting this year.

Contact: Office of University Communications, news@uwporterfalls.edu