KC Meeting Minutes March 2013 Posted on April 4th, 2013 by

Kitchen Cabinet
March 18, 2013

Present: Erin Traxler, Saskia Raether, Rebecca Hare, Lisa Heldke, Margo Druschell, Steve Kjellgren, Jim Dontje, George Elliott, Jeff Stocco, Scott Bur

1. Fair Trade – Steve gave an update on last week’s meeting with the Equal Exchange group that was on campus last Wednesday. Margo and Steve described what Equal Exchange consists of (they have a great website you can check out), their purpose and mission. Products are sold at cost and people can sell them at churches, markets, smaller venues, etc. Equal Exchange has done a great job getting the word out about Fair Trade, etc. over the years. And they are very dedicated to the small farmers. Emma and her team from Boston were coming to talk about bananas, but they did bring other products. Steve noted that most other colleges are not purchasing fair trade bananas (they were going to meet with Carleton) otherwise they were meeting with grocery stores in the area. The team outlined how the banana gets to us from being picked to getting shipped here. It does appear to be a more direct route to go with Equal Exchange, even for some of our other products. They are very involved in cooperative business in the countries that they purchase. They did provide us with education regarding fair trade and fair trade certification. Equal Exchange is not in favor of the Fair Trade USA that some of the big companies are working on. Overall it was a great meeting and brought forth more questions we could be asking. We will continue to ask questions and research our options. Jim brought up a good point that often times it comes down to price.
2. Nobel Renovation. Scott Bur shared with us the rough draft of the plans for the Nobel renovation; we are specifically interested in the Experiential or Demonstration Kitchen. The kitchen has been kept into the plans as there are several interested parties across campus. It is both the kitchen and the break room and would fit 12-15 people. Steve suggested looking at different models and talking to others who have planned and/or have an Experiential Kitchen. The Experiential Kitchen would also serve as a catering closet, so we are expecting it to be multi-functional. As of right now there is an effort being made to secure the funds, the soonest something might happen would be the Summer of 2014, and before anything happens there needs to be at least 30-35 million dollars and this is about a 65 million dollar project.
3. Coke Grants – Steve and Judy will meet this week to put an invitation together for the participants and ask them to present at Creative Inquiry. There will also a timeline be put together for putting materials out for next year.
4. Good Food for Busy Gusties – There were 9 students involved in the last event that took place on February 27 at the St. Peter Co-op. There is a March event planned and we will continue to keep KC updated.
5. Nutrition Labeling Update – George gave a brief summary as to where we are at with the project being on line. It is still in the test stage and the next step is to remove recipes that we specifically don’t use and then to update the attributes so we can also get the ingredients to go along with the labels.
6. Compost – Jim discussed how the composter and building are coming along and provided us with a visual. It will be about 24 feet long and 8 feet wide. It will have an augur and it will mix at one end and shuffle things around. The building will store the compost as well as storing waste if needed. The building will also serve us well in the future if the laws change. Attached to the side of the building will be a green house.
7. Local Foods Class – Jim’s class canned foods and used the Dining Service kitchen and Lisa talked about fermented foods during that time. We discussed what different learning intersections happen with growing foods, processing food, composting food and education. How do we capture all of these things that are taking place across campus, how do we put it together and how does one go about getting credit for the work that is being done.

 

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