Carolina Dining Services’ 2023 Sustainability Report boasts that in 2021, more than 20 percent of its food was sourced locally, sustainably, humanely and under fair working conditions. The remaining percent remains a mystery, and very little information about its sourcing is readily available for curious students.
For many at UNC, meal plans are essential due to the limited food storage in dorms and the convenience of dining hall access while balancing busy school schedules. With on-campus meal plans at UNC starting at a steep $1,795, I set out on a mission to discover exactly where that chunk of change goes.
After weeks of combing the depths of the internet for some answers, I found lots of greenwashing, very few specifics and one glaring issue: a quiet affiliation with Aramark, a company that provides food, uniforms and staffing for schools, prisons, entertainment venues and more. It is also a company that has repeatedly come under fire for unfair working conditions, racism, the use of exploitative prison labor and providing incarcerated people with substandard food.
In some Aramark prison kitchens, incarcerated people prepare and package food for up to 40 hours per week. Since the Fair Labor Standards Act does not define inmates as “employees”, they are not entitled to minimum wage and working protections, so many of these workers earn substandard pay. These conditions have prompted students at Barnard College and New York University to protest and petition their schools’ partnerships with Aramark, successfully leading to their contract terminations and new associations with Chartwells, a more morally sound company.
CDS also claims that it has started working with more Black, Indigenous, and people of color-owned farms, though it states few figures other than a $10,000 grant towards bringing more BIPOC farmers on board. This would be a more noble pursuit if it were accompanied by a greater structural commitment to combating racism.
Aside from its prison labor practices, Aramark has also been criticized for serving inmates spoiled food and inadequate portions. This carceral abuse is a racial issue, as people of color are convicted at disproportionately high rates compared to those of white people in America.
Aramark has also been censured for racial insensitivity for serving watermelon, chicken and waffles — foods associated with a strong history of racist stereotypes — on the first day of Black History Month at a New York middle school.
After cutting DEI funds and demonstrating complacency about Aramark’s racial offenses, UNC’s pride in its support of BIPOC farmers feels like a performative bandage over a gaping wound in our institution’s integrity. This also tokenizes these farmers, manipulating their contributions to our dining halls into an undeserved point of pride for our administration.
Aside from the inherent racism in the structure that orchestrates CDS’s sourcing, there is also a huge void of publicly-available information regarding exactly who provides nearly 80 percent of dining hall food. With only a little more than 20 percent of food meeting the Real Food Challenge’s standards of sustainability and ethics, we can deduce that the vast majority of our meals come at a great cost to the environment, animal rights or worker’s rights. By advertising only the small minority that meets ethical expectations, CDS effectively greenwashes its operations, placating the student body through the calculated concealment of information and vague promises of progress.
