A budding partnership between neighboring Providence universities may lead to a new food brand designed for purchase by large institutions with lots of mouths to feed.
Awarded a $250,000 Henry P. Kendall Foundation grant earlier this month, the collaboration pairs Johnson & Wales University and the Rhode Island School of Design in an effort to research, design and market a brand of locally produced food slated for purchase by institutional dining facilities, including colleges and universities.
Though the schools are located less than a mile apart, they are not regular partners, acknowledged JWU’s Ken Watt, executive chef of auxiliary services, and Ginnie Dunleavy, RISD’s executive director of auxiliary services.
“When it comes to our dining programs working together,” said Watt, “This is the first time we’ve done anything like this with RISD.”
But this project appears to take advantage of each school’s strengths, a key to any successful collaboration.
In fact, the Kendall Foundation grant required recipients to collaborate – an aspect of the directive Dunleavy applauded. “It stretches each program to expand” its capabilities, she said.
Playing off the schools’ national design and culinary reputations, the collaboration will see JWU develop roughly six food products designed for purchase by institutional dining facilities. RISD will create a brand to market the line. The group’s first meeting was set for Nov. 30.
The idea for the partnership came from Dunleavy, who watched as RISD maxed out its ability to source local produce for its dining facilities.
“The next level for us would be to [purchase] bulk processed food” from local vendors, she said, but that “isn’t readily available.”
In an effort to fill that gap, Dunleavy and Watt, with the help of Farm Fresh Rhode Island – the third partner in the program, hope to build a local supply of produce on which colleges and universities can rely, rather than having food products shipped in from across the nation.
One challenge, said Dunleavy, is the identification of which local products to target. Farm Fresh Rhode Island will provide a list of which Rhode Island products are “prolific … and not being fully captured” by local vendors. Then, the team will determine which goods purchased outside the local area can be replaced with the JWU-RISD brand.
Dunleavy hopes to attract large institutions – such as the University of Rhode Island, the University of Massachusetts and Yale University – to spread awareness of the idea and build the brand regionally.
Part of the team’s goal is to see more of what is produced in the area sold to local vendors.
“If that means adding more farmers, great, if that means adding more land under cultivation, [also great],” said Watt.
Dunleavy hopes JWU and RISD students will help spark a movement and “put pressure on some other schools that aren’t purchasing locally.”
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a staff writer for PBN. You can follow her on Twitter @FlashGowdey or contact her via email, Gowdey-backus@PBN.com.
