An early adopter of the term “clean,” Cornell University’s Dining Services unit publishes a Clean Dining Guide online, outlining the approximately 50 steps the program has taken so far to clean up its ingredients. The Ithaca, N.Y., university, which serves 10,000 students on meal plans, started its efforts in summer 2017.
“Food marketing can be tricky,” says Cornell’s nutrition management director, Michele Lefebvre. “How can you outline what you’re doing in ways your customer can understand? We understand there’s so much out there right now that could mean clean, and it could be confusing for the basic consumer. But the goal is to really serve higher-quality ingredients. We thought clean would match what our demographic is really looking for.”
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