While the meal celebrating Farm to Fork for Bon Appetit Food services was celebrating 20 years, preparing for the meal wasn’t much different for manager Dave Smigo or head chef Jay Schworn.

“It’s similar to the process we do when it comes to every day’s meal,” Smigo said. “We try to cook with as many local ingredients as possible and are always using fresh items whenever possible.”

“If anything, it is an opportunity for us to highlight and showcase the products from our many local providers,” Schworn said. “It also tends to up the energy in the kitchen for all of us to put out a quality lunch for our students and community.”

There are some items that may be out of season in the area that get imported for some meals, but all are prepared from scratch in the kitchens lower in the dining hall and then moved up to be served.

If anything, the Farm to Fork meal is a celebration of the countless local farmers and producers who help Bon Appetit provide local and fresh ingredients to their farms.

Smigo said who they have partnered with may have changed over the course of the years, but the goal is always to support farmers as local as possible for a range of foods.

“For some of our partners, they’ve grown because of the collaboration and having a partner like us for their resources,” Smigo said.

He points to their meat provider as an example of that. When they started, they were able to provide some basic meats that the college would use, and now they’re able to provide things like halal meat options, which helps the college provide options for students with particular diets.

Smigo said as well that being able to use whole foods adds healthy options to students.

“When you’re not using frozen or processed foods, but things that are just on the label like potatoes, the oil that they’re cooked in and seasoning for things like fries, it makes it a more quality option of food,” Smigo said.

“It feels good to be able to offer fresh and quality ingredients that add to a person’s dining experience,” Schworn said.

Students Laura Sander and Oriana McKanan agreed.

“I’ve had the opportunity to sample so many international dishes because they’reprepared here at Bon Appetit,” Sander said.

Sander noted as a vegetarian, having the food offered being fresh she can really tell the difference and knows she can get quality food prepared by the college.

“You can definitely tell it’s fresh, never frozen,” Sander said.

“For me knowing how much is prepared from local produce is a cool benefit,” McKanan said.

Both McKanan and Sander have worked in the kitchens in the past and noted how amazing it is to smell meals being prepared before they’re being served.

The one area Smigo notes is a challenge to source locally at the moment is any type of oil.

“We have so many local farmers that grow soybeans that you would think we’d be able to source it here, but we can’t,” Smigo said. “That’s the item that takes the greatest distance to get to us and we use a lot in cooking. We use items like rendered pork, farm butter and bacon grease for some of our cooking to help, but oil is tough to source locally.”

For local producers, working with the college has been huge for their businesses as well.

Little Scratch Coffee has been the supplier of coffee for Cornell College since 2019 (back then under Wake Up Iowa coffee). When they moved to be an independent roaster following the pandemic, Cornell’s continued partnership gave them an anchor business to continue to focus on their coffee roasting and help get their feet under them as they expanded to other options.

“It means we have consistent support from someone who is always looking for a quality product,” Katrina Sogaard-Anderson said.

“When we made the move from being half an hour away to just a mile down the road, it meant we’re even closer,” Joel Anderson said. “When people run out of coffee, and you’re half an hour away, it can take time to resupply. We’re mere minutes away from the campus now and can easily stock that order.”

Olde Capitol Food Company in Iowa City has supplied tofu to the college for almost five years now.

“I love working with Chef Smigo,” Jake Gratzon of Old Capitol Food Company said. “When we were first starting out and wanted to get into the institutional side of food business, he was one who reached out to us about our products. They appreciate the quality we provide and have been a fan of ours since we started.”

Country View Dairy said that they have provided their products for almost 12 years now to Bon Appetit.

“They sought us out when they encountered our booth at the Cedar Rapids Farmers Market,” Dave Rapson said. “They are so easy to work with and it has just been a great collaboration to have for our products to be featured here.”

Rapson said that they are one of the closest customers they have that focus on buying locally.

“We’re just one farm with 20 employees, but it’s meant the world to us to grow with them in what we’re able to offer,” Rapson said.

Tom agrees that having a partner like Bon Appetit is huge for his own dairy, WW Homestead Dairy in Waukon.

“They are hugely instrumental in supporting local producers,” Tom Weighner of Homestead Dairy said.

Bon Appetit takes the skim milk and chocolate milk products from Homestead Dairy regularly, and on occasion some of the cheese offerings the dairy has.

WW Homestead Dairy was the result of a merger of two small family farms years ago, and they now offer cream, milk, cheeses, and frozen dairy options.