What is the Real Food Challenge?

The Real Food Challenge is a national campaign that unites and empowers students and their allies to create a food system that truly nourishes people, communities, and the earth.

The purpose of the Real Food Challenge is to establish a common platform for existing networks to talk with each other—to amplify the work that fair trade campaigners, local food advocates, farm worker activists, student farmers, and others do in relative isolation from each other.


But what is “real food”?

Real Food means a lot of things. It’s a new, holistic term we’re using to bring together a lot of different ideas people have about what just and sustainable food is.

We’re talking about food that is ethically produced, with fair treatment of workers, equitable relationships with farmers (locally and abroad), and humanely treated animals. It’s food that is environmentally sustainable—grown without chemical pesticides, large-scale mono-cropping, or huge carbon footprints. Real Food is food that tastes good, builds community, and has the potential to inspire broad-scale social change.

You can call it “green” or “fresh,” “local” or “organic.” But we’re talking about more than supermarket labels. That’s why we think about Real Food—in the context of our entire food system, from farm to plate—as food that truly nourishes people, communities, and the earth.

Click here to see a visual representation of what real food means.


What are its goals?

The central goal is to re-direct at least 20% of all the food purchased by colleges and universities (currently 4 billion dollars) toward real food within 10 years.

This is our flagship goal—but not the only one. Overall, we want to foster an entire campus culture that supports real food. That means we also want to see more college farms and more academic programs that deal with food.

Focusing on food purchased by dining services allows us to channel our energies in a measurable and magnifying way. Cafeterias represent the part of the campus food environment with the largest ripple effect, both in terms of the student awareness and the in terms of wider world.


How will we reach our goals?

The Real Food Challenge has five basic principles that guide our work. In working toward our goals, we will:

• Empower students by connecting them with resources, tools, and each other
• Build partnerships between students and other stakeholders—in particular, faculty, administration, dining services, producers, and the wider community
• Promote alignment across different campuses and issues (fair trade, local food, organic, etc) through shared frameworks and strategies
• Frame food as an important part of the wider campus sustainability movement
• Examine and challenge the legacy of racism in the food system and our work

But what does the Real Food Challenge DO?

• Brings students together (e.g. The Northeast Real Food Summit at Yale University)
• Offers trainings and leadership development
• Identifies and provides resources
• Unites groups around collective goals and frameworks
• Networks with administrators, dining service professionals, and growers

Who is the Real Food Challenge?

YOU! Yes you and thousands of other campus leaders and activists throughout the country working on real food issues.

At hundreds of different schools, students are already standing up and taking back the food system. We are reclaiming land for gardens and farms; we are raising awareness of the injustices done to farmers abroad; we are demanding a change in the business of dining halls and food procurement. And this is just the beginning…

The Real Food Challenge is an active, national network at the forefront of a national student food movement. It was designed by a team of students, recent grads and professionals—food leaders from across the country. In the future, it will be largely run by regional organizers and student activist leaders. Learn more about the Design Team and the Steering Committee. The Real Food Challenge is sponsored by The Food Project and the California Student Sustainability Coalition.


How did the Real Food Challenge start?

The Real Food Challenge is the result of many streams of thought and action coming together. The idea was born in 2005 at a workshop that created a conversation between farm-to-college, fair trade, and farm-worker activists which was facilitated by author Anna Lappe and The Food Project. The session showed us that there was a need for much more dialogue—and possibly coordination—across issue lines.

Discussion about a national campaign began in earnest when representatives of the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC) joined The Food Project’s (TFP) youth delegation at the 2006 Food and Society Conference sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The youth delegates saw a connection between their work on college campuses and the Foundation’s new goal of “shifting the presence of ‘good food’ in the food system from 2 to 10%.” We realized that a similarly-framed goal could help to focus the work of students in shifting the college food system.

A year later at the 2007 Food and Society Conference, TFP, CSSC and others formally created a Steering Committee and a Design Team to make the idea a reality.

Of course, the deeper roots of the Real Food Challenge lie in the ground nurtured by many pioneering individuals and groups, especially United Students for Fair Trade, Oxfam’s CHANGE Leaders Program, the Student Farmworker Alliance, the Community Food Security Coalition, Equal Exchange, and Slow Food on Campus, to name a few. The Real Food Challenge exists to support and amplify all of these important efforts.


Why students?

Because students know what’s up. Students have shown that they have passion and drive. Thousands are already working to create a more just and sustainable food system, and we often represent a commitment to the highest ideals.

Because students have power. We are the customers, and our voice counts (as long as it can be heard!). Many dining service directors say they could make changes more quickly if they had student support.

Because students—and young people in general—have the biggest stake in the future. We are also future teachers, doctors, parents, film-makers, CEOs, farmers, urban planners, etc.—decision-makers at every level of society. Our priorities will be the priorities of the future.

Because the movement needs students. From Women’s Suffrage to Civil Rights, few if any social change movements have succeeded without the energy, bravery, and commitment of young people.

Clearly, students are key to change. But students are missing a system-wide voice. We are the only group of campus stakeholders that are not organized at a system-wide level. We don’t, for instance, tend to think about campus food as one big market, the way the food industry does. If our efforts can be coordinated, we have the potential to become a force far more powerful than our numbers suggest.


Why now?

The time is ripe! People are increasingly waking up to the need for change. The need is dire, as environmental degradation, corporate consolidation, homogenization, and alienation become the hallmarks of our food system. The momentum for change is growing—consumers are demanding more real food, activists from across the country are connecting with one another, and the buzz is growing in the mainstream. On college campuses—at several hundred of them—the momentum has become a budding movement.

This movement, however, lacks common goals, a common framework, and a collective voice, nor is it as diverse and widespread as it should be. If we move strategically and effectively, we can capitalize on this energy and bring the elements of the campus food movement into collaboration, working towards a unified goal of higher-quality, healthier, and more socially conscious food.


Where is RFC now?

Phase 1: Jan 2008-September 2008

• Design: Plans for the RFC are drafted, resources are gathered, goals are set, and initial network outreach starts.
• Execution: Regional Organizers hired, organizational structure set

Phase 2: September 2008-September 2009

• Roll-out: The Real Food Challenge officially launches nationally, with three active regional hubs.
• Growth: The network expands, with more schools in different regions joining the RFC.

How is the Real Food Challenge funded?

The Real Food Challenge has received financial support and encouragement from:

• The Zimmerman Foundation
• The Cedar Tree Foundation
• The Small Planet Fund

We should also recognize that the Challenge would not have started without the support that the W.K. Kellogg Foundation provided to bring youth to their Food and Society Conference.

We appreciate all of the support we have received, financial and otherwise.

The Food Project acts as the fiscal agent for the Real Food Challenge. If you are interested in contributing, please contact Anim Steel at asteel@thefoodproject.org.


What can I do? / How do I join?

You can start by:

• Submitting information about your school
• Becoming a School Liaison (this is the first step in joining the Challenge)
• Making use of the database
• Identifying other students/schools
• Join a listserv (see your Regional homepage)
• Using the resources
• Pilotting the Real Food Calculator (contact Anim Steel at asteel@thefoodproject.org)
• Join the RFC email list. Contact mgrossman@thefoodproject.org with “RFC list” in the subject line.

To get more involved, consider:

• Becoming an Area Organizer
• Becoming a Regional Coordinator
• Serving on the Student Advisory Committee

Contact Marissa Grossman at blast@thefoodproject.org!