On Friday, April 1, President Bruce Shepard signed Student’s for Sustainable Foods (SSF) Real Food Challenge petition, following through with his verbal commitment to sign last month. Senior Tristan Sokol, Vice President of Student’s for Sustainable Food, said the signing of the petition will allow students to have more say when it comes to their food. The Real Food Challenge agreement Shepard signed will initiate a move toward more “real foods” being served in university dining halls. Sokol defined “real foods” as local, fair, humane and organic. The agreement aims to increase “real food” usage in university dining halls from 11 percent to 25 percent in the year 2020. “As students we now have a much stronger place in the dining system at Western,” Sokol said. “We are in a position now to give students a much bigger voice in what they eat.” After having the petition signed, the SSF has their sights set on the future of Western’s food. “The next step for us is moving toward making the university more independent in food choices, and hopefully in the future to have our own dining services,” Sokol said. To help encourage Western’s independence, the SSF is interested in obtaining a grant to fully fund a food truck that can be utilized as a student-run catering business. If successful, the student-run catering business would replace the contractual catering business we have today, Aramark. *Updated at 7:32 p.m. April 2, 2016*
