Fedele Bauccio, CEO and co-founder of Bon Appétit Management Company, will speak on campus early next month at an event sponsored by the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability, Dining Services, the Blum Center and the Karen Merritt Writing Program.
The event is free and open to all, and begins at 1:30 p.m. March 17 in the California Room.
Bauccio is visiting campus as part of the Sustainability Speaker Series. This year’s theme is food, in keeping with UC President Janet Napolitano’s Global Food Initiative.
Bauccio’s company supplies restaurants, food vendors corporations, universities and museums in 32 states. Bauccio and Bon Appétit have revolutionized the food service industry both by introducing fresh, made-from-scratch food to the contract market and by pioneering environmentally and socially responsible practices designed to create a more sustainable food system.
Under Bauccio’s leadership, Bon Appétit has developed programs addressing local purchasing, the overuse of antibiotics, sustainable seafood, the connection between food and climate change, humanely raised meat and eggs, and farmworker rights. Bauccio’s work has been honored by many nonprofit and industry groups, and UC Merced sustainability Director Colleen McCormick has nominated him for one more: the International Green Industry Hall of Fame for 2016.
“I heard him speak in Los Angeles last summer, and he talked about how people told him he’d never make money with a sustainable food business, but he said if you follow your passion, the money will come,” McCormick said. “I liked his message and invited him here to share it with the Merced community.”
For more information about the event, contact McCormick at 209-228-2478 or cmccormick3@ucmerced.edu.
