Case Study Spotlight: Catering@Penn - An Inclusive, Sustainable Solution for Catering Procurement
2023 SPLC Leadership Award Winner - Special Initiative
Catering@Penn is a catering procurement platform, collaboratively built by the University of Pennsylvania to support and help drive sustainable, inclusive, smart catering decisions. Penn Procurement Services and Penn Sustainability teamed up to create a catering procurement solution that offers the University a stable of local, diverse, and environmentally-friendly caterers that have been strategically sourced and contracted. Key to the solution is a dynamic, interactive website where Penn administrators can search suppliers based on familiar categories such as:
- Service type or attributes, e.g. boxed lunch, breakfast, liquor license, etc.
- Dietary accommodations and cuisine types, e.g. gluten free, vegan, kosher, halal, Mexican
At the same time, the team established the capability to search based on other key sustainability attributes, such as:
- Level of environmental sustainability capabilities
- Business classification, e.g. minority owned, woman-owned, LGBTQ+ owned
- Business diversity sub-classification, e.g. Black-owned, Hispanic-owned, Asian American-owned
- Business Location: Hyper-local (West Philadelphia) and Local (Philadelphia)
The online search platform is live on the Procurement Services website and is used on a regular basis by fans among Penn’s administration. To showcase the program, Procurement Services hosted a tasting event to connect the Penn Community to the University’s preferred caterers. Click here to read the full case study*
The Catering@Penn case study was submitted to the 2023 SPLC Leadership Awards program, and was awarded the 2023 SPLC Leadership Award for Special Initiative. Visit the SPLC website for more information on the Leadership Awards Program.
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