Formed in 2003–2004, the Food Systems Working Group (FSWG) is a student-led organization that has included UCSC students, staff, faculty, and community members. FSWG works to bring sustainably grown food produced by socially responsible operations to campus dining halls and through a collaborative process, promote education and awareness of our food system.
Over time FSWG has incubated a range of projects as student voices have called attention to the intersectional relationship of food, culture, power, and equity. To this end FSWG works across experiential learning sites, curates open pollinated organic seeds for student gardens, partners on food security and basic needs efforts, and hosts outreach events while continuing to work to improve our supply chain. FSWG has served to bring together students passionate about making constructive changes to our campus and community food system.
FSWG publishes the annual Campus Food & Garden Guide, which contains information about how students can get involved with campus and community food systems.
Real Food Calculator
A group of FSWG students comprise the Real Food Calculator Team. The team investigates and analyzes thousands of UCSC Dining purchases, classifying each product by whether the item is “Real Food,” (defined as fulfilling at least one of the four categories: local, fair, ecologically sound, and humane) or not, and indicating whether the product is plant-based or not.
The team researches and proposes alternatives to big-ticket food items that don’t currently meet sustainability standards. At the end of the year, all the data is inputted into UCSC Dining’s procurement system, which generates the percentage of Real Food bought by UCSC for the entire school year, and this information is used to shift institutional procurement to more sustainable and nourishing foods.
Built around our Real Food Standards, the Real Food Calculator is still the first and only web application of its kind—students collect invoices from their school’s dining manager, research the invoice line items against our standards, and input their research into our calculator application, which analyzes their campus’ purchasing patterns.