Real Food Collaborative (RFC) is a Cal Poly club focused on improving Campus Dining by bringing more organic and local foods to campus.
Laura Wilkinson
Special to Mustang News
Real Food Collaborative — a campus club dedicated to healthy food awareness — is continuing their mission to bring healthy local foods to Cal Poly students by offering a three-course menu tasting on March 10.
According to club president and environmental management and protection sophomore Jesse Gibson, the event is primarily for market research purposes, in case a new cooperative or food cart were established on campus.
Tickets, priced at $20 each, sold out within two days of being offered.
Gibson said this is a positive indication of the student body’s interest in healthy eating.
“Ask any freshman — the captive consumer — if they’re satisfied with the food on campus; nine times out of 10, they’ll say no,” Gibson said. “There is no doubt in my mind that the food co-op would be well-received.”
Gibson got involved with Real Food Cooperative as a freshman, after finding Campus Dining offerings to be “abhorrent” and disappointing in terms of vegetarian food options.
Cal Poly graduate Shannon Whitehill, a former employee of VG Cafe, said she wishes the university would put more funds and effort into providing healthy, organic, locally sourced food options.
“It’s not that the chefs want to make super unhealthy food all the time,” Whitehill said. “The ingredients that they get to use are just so low quality.”
Real Food Collaborative hopes to offer another tasting in April, but no events have been scheduled at present.