Program overview: The Humane Society of the United States partnered with John Jay College and Meatless Monday to host a plant-based culinary training program for MBJ Cafeteria Corp., a local foodservice provider working with colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) public university system.
Objective: Help college foodservice providers in the New York City area meet the growing student demand for more plant-based menu items through free culinary training offered by the Humane Society of the United States.
Process: Hold culinary training seminars to teach food service providers about plant-based ingredients, recipes, cooking techniques, and marketing terminology.
Outcome: The hands-on training inspired the team at MBJ Cafeteria Corp. to develop a revamped plant-based menu category for the CUNY schools they service.
With the growing popularity of plant-based foods, colleges and universities are adding more vegan and vegetarian dishes to their menus. College students are typically more health-focused and concerned with environmental sustainability and conservation. To meet this increasing demand, foodservice providers are adding a range of new vegan and vegetarian options to their menus. This means chefs and staff must become familiar with plant-based ingredients, cooking techniques, and marketing terminology.
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) offers free training to foodservice teams seeking to broaden their plant-based menu options. Since 2015, the HSUS has provided plant-based training to more than 10,000 dining directors and chefs at major institutions across the country. Their team of dietitians and chefs helps design menus, train chefs, and host plant-based leadership summits; and also partners with hundreds of individual institutions to create meat-free initiatives.
The HSUS held a free plant-based culinary training event at John Jay College, where local foodservice providers came to learn about plant-based cooking techniques, ingredients, and menu development. MBJ Cafeteria Corp., a full-scale catering service that works with colleges in the New York City area, enlisted the help of the HSUS to increase their meat-free offerings at John Jay and other colleges in the CUNY system. The team at HSUS showed the MBJ Cafeteria staff how to prepare student-friendly dishes, like buffalo cauliflower wings, fire-roasted corn chowder, chickpea and walnut pesto with penne pasta, and garbanzo bean sliders.
After the two-day HSUS training, Aldana Vasques Williams, vice president of MBJ Cafeteria Corp., said, “The hands-on training event motivated our team to imagine new ways to create delicious, cost-effective, and sustainable plant-based meals. We’re excited to apply our learnings in developing a plant-based menu that we’ll launch in January in conjunction with Meatless Monday.”
