TO OPEN THE BOX
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READY IN THE SECONDS IT TAKES
provides produce that might otherwise be rejected based on its
appearance. The venue also sources local seafood and seeks to
utilize what used to be known as "trash fish." The Pledge has
also included potatoes and butternut squash that were gleaned
from fields after the harvest.
The relatively small capacity of The Pledge allows UMass
Dining to showcase these initiatives that would be impossible
on the scale of the entire campus. "In university dining we serve
45,000 to 50,000 meals a day," says Sullivan. "It's a pleasant
thought, but it's almost impossible to get chickens, for example,
within a three-mile radius to feed that kind of volume daily. That's
the annual production for some of these smaller suppliers."
One of the challenges Sullivan has encountered with The
Pledge, however, is that students tire of the limited menu. "In a
university environment, you are servicing the same people every
single day, so that element of the program wasn't sustainable
without someone of Chef Jehangir's caliber standing there every
single day," he says.
This year he's working with Mehta on revamping the menu
while retaining the principles that The Pledge represents.
Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 2561
Chef Jehangir Mehta (left) has partnered with UMass on The Pledge by Jehangir, a local-ingredient, sustainability-
focused foodservice station within the Blue Wall Cafe, a 14-station food hall in the center of campus (right).
PHOTOS:
UMASS
SPRING 2018 29
