Walking through Cal Poly Humboldt’s J Dining Hall, students are surrounded by posters and decorative lettering on the walls that tout the university’s commitment to sustainability and locally sourced products. But the produce on students’ plates likely comes via a Sysco truck from hundreds of miles away rather than local farms.
The university’s administration announced it would outsource food services to a private vendor, Chartwells, in 2021. Former President Tom Jackson Jr. promised locally sourced produce, reductions in single-use plastics and a dining experiencFour years later, those promises remain largely unfulfilled. e that would reflect the campus’ environmental values. At the time, administrators framed the move as an upgrade to on-campus dining and a greener option, with a press release pledging that “responsible sourcing and sustainability will remain an integral part of the dining program.”
An investigation by CPH journalism students found single-use plastics remain abundant in campus markets and waste reduction efforts remain limited. Following inquiries from reporters for this story, the university recently began sourcing a small portion of food served on campus from local farms, but most is still trucked into Humboldt from hundreds of miles away.
CPH’s initial contract with Chartwells included a $7 million bonus paid to the university, with another $3 million bonus negotiated later, but none of that $10 million in one-time revenue has gone toward improving sustainability of dining services. Instead, that money has sat mostly unspent even as the campus navigated a $7.7 million budget reduction last year, though about $500,000 has been spent on building repairs, maintenance and scholarship programs. At the same time, dining services is steadily losing revenue. A projected spike in student enrollment with the university’s transition into the state’s third polytechnic institution remains unrealized, while proposed sustainability policies from student groups have been ignored.
Cal Poly Humboldt Dining Services, managed by Chartwells, defends its program as sustainable and student-focused, citing reusable containers, composting, reduced plastics and some local vendor partnerships. The university acknowledged most food is sourced through Sysco instead of local farmers, but emphasized that sustainability efforts are a work in progress.
Much of the food served at Cal Poly Humboldt isn’t sourced locally but is trucked hundreds of miles into the county. (Noelle Doblado/Contributed)
“While gross sales under Chartwells’ management are higher than previous in-house dining operations, both the University and Chartwells operate on modest margins,” university spokesperson Aileen Yoo said in an emailed statement. “These funds are reinvested in dining services to maintain and improve options for students.”
But dining services lacks basic data on food waste reduction efforts and work with local vendors. What data there is, released by the university in response to public records requests, only covers food prep waste and is not tracked consistently. The university declined to disclose “Weigh the Waste” days data, a student volunteer effort that CPH administrators trumpet annually as a core component of the campus’ composting/food waste efforts. While state legislation requires cities to establish food recovery programs, CPH’s participation in the program is not well documented, records show. Several members of Chartwells’ local staff — including former Regional District Manager James Richards, former Marketing Director John Shermer and Front of House Supervisor Karter Bloxsom — declined to provide any documentation of food prep waste or food donations, despite repeated requests from reporters.
Students, meanwhile, have expressed disappointment with the quality and price of food on campus, and lamented a lack of follow-through on proposed expansions since Chartwells took charge of dining services. One fifth-year student, Phoenix Pierce, attended the university before Chartwells began managing dining and recalled a stark difference in food quality and operations.
“We actually had our own dining, and I long for the days when it used to be like that,” Pierce said. “It was COVID times, but the food was still better. I still remember when they promised us — they sent out an email promising a taco bar and a mac n’ cheese bar, and none of that ever happened.”
One aspect of the current food offerings on campus that students repeatedly brought up during interviews was high prices. A pricing comparison conducted for this story found a box of Cheerios at the Campus Market Place costs $10.79 compared to $5.29 at Target. An Amy’s frozen mac and cheese bowl, meanwhile, costs $11.85 on campus, but just $6.25 at Target. Cheaper items, such as a Nissin Cup O’Noodles, are similarly marked up, going for $1.55 on campus, three times the price at Target.
CPH dining services prices its food according to the Food Away From Home component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is based on average prices consumers pay at restaurants rather than grocery stores.
“While we may not be as low-priced as large chain grocery stores, we are a small-volume buyer for retail outlets and are well-equipped for convenience,” Yoo said in an email.
Todd Larsen, the senior executive director for enterprise services dining, said Chartwells has been adjusting food prices to increase profits because lower-than-projected enrollment has resulted in fewer customers on campus.
“Unfortunately, Chartwells isn’t making a lot of money on it,” Larsen said of the contract, adding that last year the company also tightened payroll and other expenses.
Chartwells’ shortcomings in sustainability
While Chartwells has reportedly struggled to make a profit under its contract with CPH, the deal was a lucrative one for the university. But the administration has not chosen to reinvest any of the $10 million received in signing bonuses back into dining services, either to reduce prices or launch new sustainability programs.
Instead, officials have touted elements of the Chartwells-CPH contract that included long-term plans to source from local vendors, increase reusable containers and eliminate single-use plastics. Reusable OZZI Boxes have been implemented for to-go food around campus. Forks, spoons, cups and some lids are compostable. Plastic items, however, remain rampant.
The contract between Chartwells and CPH sets the goal of phasing out “all plastics and disposable packaging,” and Richards said the goal was to eliminate all single-use plastic packaging by 2023.
Yet, today shelves at Campus Marketplace are lined with more than 200 single-use plastics, a survey for this story found. Plastic lids and cardboard-like coffee cups labeled “Recycle Me,” meanwhile, feature a plastic coating that cannot be recycled and can only be industrially composted, said CPH Waste Reduction Resource Awareness Program leader Hailey Ingemi. Candy, toiletries, sodas and other drinks, such as Gatorade, are still being sold in single-use plastics. Although plastic water bottles were banned in 2011, other sodas and teas are still being sold in plastic bottles – even when canned alternatives are available. (Larsen said packaging is not considered part of the university’s effort to reduce single-use plastics, despite Chartwells’ contract stating otherwise.)
A variety of candy is offered at the Cal Poly Humboldt College Creek Marketplace. (Noelle Doblado/Contributed)
Jennifer Daniels, a sustainability specialist at CSU Stanislaus, said while all CSU campuses follow the same systemwide sustainability policy, each interprets it differently. The policy sets a baseline for initiatives like reducing single-use plastics, diverting food waste from landfills and sourcing food locally, but implementation depends on campus priorities, infrastructure and vendor partnerships.
“There’s always room for improvements,” Daniels said. “Each campus, each company, each jurisdiction is going to have a different lens on how they’re implementing that and how they’re enforcing it.”
Stanislaus also contracts with Chartwells for its dining service. But unlike at CPH, Stanislaus has adopted food waste-reduction strategies, such as trayless dining, smaller plates to curb oversized portions and beverage dispensers instead of cartons. Disposable items are not used for dine-in meals, and menus are designed seasonally to align with local sourcing goals. Stanislaus also runs a sustainable garden and coordinates composting efforts, though Daniels noted food recovery is prioritized over composting under state law.
Still, Daniels said campuses face limits, from waste-hauler contracts to procurement guidelines, and must balance sustainability with accessibility.
“It takes the entire community to participate,” she said. “Sustainability is a culture we want woven into everything, but there are always variables that affect how we get there.”
Both CPH and Chartwells officials cited financial limitations as a barrier to further sustainability efforts. Meanwhile, local farmers, working together through the North Coast Growers’ Association’s Harvest Hub, said they had reached out repeatedly to Chartwells staff about becoming the university’s produce vendor but were ignored for months, despite offering prices competitive to Sysco’s. (We were unable to do a cost comparison between Harvest Hub and Sysco for this story because neither makes its produce prices available publicly.)
Larsen emphasized Chartwells’ financial constraints to further sustainability practices, noting that CPH has used some of the money it received from Chartwells to fund other aspects of student life.
“That has helped fund a bunch of stuff. It’s helped fund, gosh, we had to subsidize lodging at Comfort Inn when we had overflow housing, right?” Larsen said. “We are tapping it into the green and gold scholarship program that’s launching this fall.”
Yoo, the CHP spokesperson, pushed back against the notion that CPH doesn’t source food locally, noting it buys coffee from Kinetic Koffee and Muddy Waters, tofu from the Tofu Shop and Chocolates from Hum Yum, while Los Bagels and Wild Blue Sushi have spaces in The Depot.
The Tofu Shop she referenced closed permanently late last year. Meanwhile, the dining page on the university’s website says it “often” buys local, from farms and other businesses.
Chartwells’ contract: Big revenue, mixed results
Chartwells’ parent company, Compass Group USA, has 28 subsidiaries and more than 305,000 contracts with both K-12 schools and higher education institutions in the U.S. and Canada. Chartwells worked with at least nine CSU campuses in 2022, public records collected from every CSU show, and has a 10-year contract with the CSU system itself that runs through 2032.
Measuring the success of CPH’s sustainability efforts is difficult. There is little to no consistent data collection within dining services on sustainability metrics or food waste. Audits for California’s Senate Bill 1383, which aims to combat climate change by cutting methane emissions created by food waste while addressing food insecurity, are required, but it is unclear if CPH has completed one. The University was unable to offer clear records of how much organic waste is generated or diverted on campus.
What is clear, though, is that the partnership brought a windfall of one-time money to the university in the form of significant signing bonuses.
But the deal is complex and, so far, has not been lucrative for either party on an annual basis. Under the contract’s terms, Chartwells handles the business and operational side of dining services, while CPH acts more as a landlord, maintaining the facilities and equipment used. Larsen said that dining lost about $2 million for the 2024-25 academic year and is on track to lose $1million 2025-26.
Cal Poly Humboldt’s College Creek Marketplace — and all other dining services on campus — will be managed by Chartwells until 2042 after the university quietly extended its contract with the company. (Noelle Doblado/Contributed)
Chartwells pays the university a guaranteed annual management fee of $150,000 or 2% of net sales, whichever is greater. Chartwells has increased dining revenue year-over-year since taking over, bringing in between $6.2 million and $8.5 million.
While CPH’s in-house dining services weren’t making as much annual profit prior to Chartwells, expenses and gross income almost always came out to a net positive and steadily increased each year, financial records show. (Yoo contends this is in part because students were paying $1,000 more for meal plans annually when dining services were managed in-house.)
CPH’s contract stipulated that Chartwells pay a signing bonus of $7 million in the first year. The contract was signed in 2021 with the expectation that Cal Poly Humboldt would double its enrollment as it transitioned into California’s third polytechnic. In a list of outcome assumptions with the contract, the university expected meal plans to increase with enrollment. When these numbers weren’t met, Larsen said the university extended the contract’s term for 20 years — through June 2042 — to help Chartwells recoup its investment. Chartwells also paid CPH an additional $3 million in bonus money.
Why isn’t CPH sourcing food locally?
Prior to contracting with Chartwells, CPH sourced food through local farms affiliated with the North Coast Growers’ Association. In recent years, the nonprofit has formed Harvest Hub, a subsidiary that connects local farms to institutional buyers, such as Food for People and local school districts, to coordinate harvests and guarantee small farms can meet large orders. But when Chartwells took over, it shut out local farms.
Megan Kenney, director of Harvest Hub, said she made repeated attempts in 2021 to contact Richards to get CPH to resume buying from local farmers but received no response.
“A lot of our farmers used to sell to HSU tons of food all the time. Since Chartwells took over, they completely cut ties with all the local farmers,” Kenney said last spring.
In October 2024, Harvest Hub became a certified COMPASS vendor, a designation required under the Chartwells contract in order to sell food to CPH.
“I have (still) been getting zero replies,” Kenney said in May. “It’s super frustrating because we jumped through all of these hoops, and all they do is say they care about our local economy but then they aren’t doing anything about it.”
When initially contacted for this story, CPH dining services officials said buying from Harvest Hub was too expensive and demand could not be met fully from local sources, though Kenney said some buyers find their prices comparable to Sysco’s, and that local farmers are willing to negotiate lower prices.
After several months of inquiries from reporters working on this story, Yoo, CPH’s spokesperson, said administrators had scheduled a meeting with Harvest Hub in September. Kenney said Cal Poly Humboldt’s dining services recently began purchasing local produce after a visit from her team. She explained that while many institutions assume local food is more expensive, it often reduces costs by cutting the kind of waste that can be rampant in bulk orders from distributors like Sysco.
“I’ve heard just from so many institution buyers that when they go through Sysco, you know, sometimes they get a case of lettuce that’s like, half rotten, and they have to get rid of it,” Kenney said.
Kenney pointed to Eureka City Schools as an example, noting that its switch to local sourcing increased the number of students eating on campus. She believes Cal Poly could see similar benefits, with higher-quality food encouraging more students and faculty to dine on campus.
Though the university doesn’t yet have a formal contract, Kenney said the partnership reached in September marks a step toward more sustainable, values-driven procurement that supports local farmers and reduces food waste. CPH is ordering about 200 items each week, she said, getting eggs from Foggy Bottoms Boys, salad mix from Little River Farm and potatoes from Wild Rose Farm.
Chartwells’ website stresses its commitment to working with local communities and says 20% of its products are sourced within 250 miles of each campus. But that doesn’t appear to have been the case in its first years at CPH.
Under Chartwells, meat and poultry products, as well as other proteins, have been sourced from the company’s hub in Sacramento, though it’s unclear who supplies the meat. Produce, meanwhile, is brought in from San Joaquin and Monterey counties, which are more than 350 miles away.
Most of Sysco’s delivery trucks run on gas. An average refrigerated freight truck in the U.S. emits 1,750 grams of CO2 per mile, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Without factoring in cargo weight — which further increases carbon emissions — a one-way trip from Sysco’s Sacramento Hub to Cal Poly Humboldt can emit over 0.55 metric tons of CO2, which is equivalent to charging approximately 44,466 smart phones.
While sourcing locally may reduce carbon emissions, Larsen said Chartwells receives benefits from national corporations they have contracts with.
“Chartwells has large contracts with food suppliers and beverage suppliers where they’re going to get some sort of rebate at the end,” Larsen said, noting the company’s collective purchasing power across all the campuses it has contracts with. “They might give you a 1% discount or a rebate or something.”
Gaps in organic waste and food recovery data
Despite sustainability claims, documents show Chartwells and the university lack transparency on food waste data. ATLAS, a zero waste program used by the university, enlists students to create sustainable solutions to food waste on their college campuses. CPH’s ATLAS fellows developed a Zero Waste Action Plan in 2023 to reduce packaging and food waste. The plan, however, has yet to move beyond the proposal stage.
Data released by Bloxsom as a part of the Waste Not 2.0 program shows 219,000 pounds of food waste are generated on average per year, with 4,200 pounds from the campus J Dining Hall. But the monitoring of food waste has been inconsistent in recent years, with several categories absent from records disclosed by the university in response to public records requests.
ATLAS Fellow Katin Kendrena said the university required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevents her from sharing food waste data. Kendrena also said there was no standardized data collection for food waste at the campus J Dining Hall, and that employees are not required to log waste.
Mariano Lalica, the executive chef at the J, said the only data available is prep food waste, which is generally meant to track financial loss rather than environmental impact. Regardless, this food waste data was not provided to reporters despite several requests to Chartwells.
Officials said dining services donates food to the Arcata House Partnership Pantry, Betty Kwan Chinn Homeless Foundation and the OhSnap! program. But no data on these donations is publicly available, and Arcata House said it only receives them intermittently.
Joseph Zazo, food security specialist at Arcata House Partnership, has worked on local food access for 24 years. His collaboration with CPH began in 2011, predating the launch of the OhSnap! student food program in 2013.
Arcata House once received regular donations from campus dining locations like the Campus Marketplace, the Depot and the J, but Zazo said the last was more than five years ago. “As people retired from the Depot and the J, then it just kind of slowed down,” he recalled.
In an emailed statement, Yoo pushed back on this characterization, saying Chartwells has “maintained a consistent donation schedule” and reported contributing 717 pounds of food to local food pantries since January 2023.
Climate analyst Morgan King, an environmental leader at the university, wants sustainability improvements to continue but said university budget cuts are a barrier. King believes there will be no sustainability changes without more money being invested in the Zero Waste Action plan.
According to the proposed plan, its implementation would require an initial capital investment of $625,000 with annual operational costs of $414,000. The only listed potential cost to students and faculty would be a fee for choosing to get disposable containers or utensils with food orders. The unspent signing bonus money from Chartwells, theoretically, would be enough to cover the initial investment and annual maintenance for 15 years.
But the plan also projects that it would more than pay for itself, with annual revenue and cost savings from the zero waste plan projected to be $1.5 million, with a 1% environmental surcharge expected to make the program profitable within one year.
“It’s a question of that initial investment that could lead to long-term saving, and a lot of what’s in the plan will do that,” King said. “It might cost a little upfront, but long term, we should see some financial savings.”
This story was produced by CPH journalism students enrolled in the Investigative Journalism Workshop. With additional reporting contributed by Georgina Munoz-Villanueva, Noah Pond, Savana Robinson, Olivia Vance and Emma Wilson.
Dining and Cooking