UC Berkeley - Week 2

 

Time is starting to fly by out here in California, and we are already 2 weeks into our NACUFS adventure. This week was a busy one for sure, but packed full of great learning experiences, delicious food, and west coast sunshine. Here's a little glimpse into what we've been up to:

So many snacks!!!

MONDAY we met with the senior executive chef to go over the proposed fall menu for Cafe 3. The menu is primarily plant-focused so our task is to analyze the menu items and categorize what is vegetarian, vegan, or neither. We then met the purchasing manager and learned about purchase orders and vendor relations. In the afternoon we got to see another side to working with vendors, and were able to sample tons of potential snacks to be sold in the retail locations on campus! There were so many crazy snacks that we had never heard of, and it was a lot of fun trying them out and giving input on which ones we liked. We also had some time to prepare for our presentation the next day, which was on the basics of healthy cooking.

TUESDAY: We started out the day at a Chef's meeting and had a little bit more job training and intro to the CalDining office. The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing for our presentation. Just after dinner we presented "A-Z of Healthy Cooking and Positive Relationship with Food" to a group of about 200 high school students visiting Cal for a summer college prep program. We were a little nervous to speak in front of a group this big, but the kids ended up being very vocal and participated throughout the entire thing! It was a huge success and great experience for both of us.

Our presentation on healthy cooking and eating!

WEDNESDAY: We worked more on categorizing the Cafe 3 menu and worked at CalSo, an orientation for newly admitted students. In the afternoon we embarked on a trip to San Francisco, to tour the Google office! Similar to AirBnb, the Google office provides three meals a day to their employees, with most of the food being source locally. The office also boasts a nap room, a gym, and a dietitian-led micro kitchen churning out healthy pre and post-workout snacks! After our tour, we were able to sit in on the Bay Area Sustainable Sourcing meeting. This year's meeting was on food hubs, organizations that exist to help distribute produce and meat from small farms to big buyers (like universities and offices!). Without food hubs, these small farms would likely be unable to sell to large organizations since their quantity of production wouldn't meet the needs of a large buyer. However, since food hubs distribute goods from numerous farms, the combined quantity often is enough to satisfy a large organization's (like Google and Stanford) food needs. In essence, food hubs make it possible for large food service organizations to source locally!

Emily (left) and Maddie (right) at Google in San Francisco

Our main project for the summer: Café 3

THURSDAY: Thursday was spent working in the dining halls for the most part. We started the day serving breakfast in Cafe 3, then went over to crossroads to shadow the sous chef and general manager on duty for the rest of the day. The most exciting part of the day however was when we got to meet with the marketing team of CalDining to discuss promotional ideas for our Cafe 3 plant-forward project, and healthy hacks for the dining halls! A lot of really awesome ideas were thrown around, and we can't wait to see them come to life. Stay tuned for updates :)



FRIDAY: Friday was the perfect balance of learning and fun to end out week 2. In the morning we got to meet with Lucky, who oversees all of the catering, retail and concession locations on campus. He gave us the low-down on his job and even took us over to the football stadium for a private tour. We got to see all the fancy rooms where people who donate money to the university get to sit during the games, and how all of the food is prepped for game days. The stadium is beautiful and has amazing views of the mountains and San Francisco Bay.

Home of the Golden Bears

Next we took a field trip to DayLight Foods, which is the main produce distributor for CalDining. It was cool learning about DayLight because they are a local company that specifies in distributing locally grown produce from family farms in the bay area. They gave us a tour of their impressive facility and talked about their sustainability efforts and role in the food service process as well!

We ended earlier than usual today, so we decided to take the 15-minute train ride to Oakland, CA and explore the city. We found a boardwalk by the water with lots of restaurants and little shops, and ended the day with some ice cream.

      


Over the weekend, we rented a car to drive scenic route 1 to Santa Cruz, where we saw sea lions, natural rock bridges, a boardwalk amusement park, and hundreds of surfers! We even had time to visit the redwood national park afterwards, and stumbled upon a local swimming hole surrounded by massive redwood trees.

Overall, week 2 was a great week! 
Until next time, 
Maddie and Emily