Fresh from the farm

Bon Appétit chefs take the corporate cafeteria lunch from ‘loser’ to ‘local’

By Dawn Weinberger

LocalNewsDaily.com, Sep 12, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Jonathan House / LocalNewsDaily.com

Executive chef Aaron Dionne (left) tosses a salad made from local ingredients for B.J. Bryant at the North American headquarters of Adidas, one of several Portland companies to use the services of the food service firm Bon Appétit.

The stereotypical workplace cafeteria is anything but epicurean. Picture salad bars with bagged iceberg lettuce and mass-market ranch dressing. Pressed chicken sandwiches on highly processed white buns. Canned soup, disguised as homemade by fancy cauldrons.

But Bon Appétit Management Co., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based food service firm that works with clients all over the nation (including many in the Portland area), is making strides toward debunking this stereotype. The company’s chefs prepare meals with as many locally grown and/or organic ingredients as possible.

Employees at local workplaces such as Adidas, Intel Corp., the University of Portland and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (the newest name on the client roster) reap the benefits. Instead of bagged lettuce and pressed chicken shipped in from who-knows-where, they dine on field greens and free-range birds from the farm a few miles up the highway.

Sarah Horton, OMSI’s membership manager, loves the fact that her daily lunch hasn’t just wrapped up a two-week road trip. A big fan of the taco salad at OMSI’s Market Cafe, she says the Bon Appétit offerings are as good, or better, than sack lunches from home. And OMSI’s selection of Bon Appétit over so many other possibilities means a lot to her.

Eating local is easy in Oregon

“In Portland, people have a lot of consciousness about the foods they are eating, and (hiring Bon Appétit) only proves that OMSI is doing more than paying lip service to the issue,” says Horton, who in the past considered cafeteria food “adequate at best.”

That is the exact response chef Aaron Dionne, who heads up Bon Appétit’s kitchen at the Adidas corporate office on Greeley Avenue in North Portland, hopes for when he arrives at work every day.

While he obviously wants to prepare great-tasting food (everything from pasta and burgers to ethnic favorites) for Adidas employees, he also wants to send the message that eating local food is good for the environment and the economy, not to mention the body.

“Education is key for us,” says Dionne, who worked at Higgins, Carafe and a few other area restaurants before joining Bon Appétit two years ago.

Though Dionne and the 399 other Bon Appétit chefs around the nation strive to educate cafeteria customers year-round, their big push comes Oct. 3 with the company’s second installment of the Eat Local Challenge (2005 was its inaugural year).

With salt as the only exception, every single item prepared in every single Bon Appétit kitchen that day will originate within a 150-mile radius of the cafeteria in question.

For Dionne, this isn’t as challenging as it is for chefs in some other regions.

“Oregon is so bountiful, it doesn’t take a lot,” he says.

Though this year’s menu is not set in stone, he does plan to make mayonnaise with local eggs, and for frying he’ll use canola oil made from seeds supplied by Pendleton Grain Growers. He’ll also serve bread from New Seasons Market, as well as locally produced sodas (rather than regular vending-machine brands). And, as usual, he’ll turn to one of his favorite local farms, Sauvie Island Organics, for fresh produce.

Located less than 10 miles from the Adidas campus, the 10-acre farm provides Adidas, the University of Portland and several other places around town with tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, melon, basil and squash, to name a few of its fresh offerings.

Tanya Murray, the farm employee in charge of all restaurant accounts, says it is really fulfilling to know that the produce she and her co-workers harvest is staying in the community.

“This keeps the agricultural community alive and vibrant, and it keeps farms in existence,” she says. “Selling direct is a huge benefit to us.”

She’ll probably supply Dionne with eggplant and peppers — crops that are at or near their peak in early fall — for the Eat Local Challenge, she says.

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