Real Foods Coordinator Brings New Perspective to Dining Services

Molly Schintler came to Grinnell in August with a very simple goal: “To ensure that the food people have access to is truly nourishing to people and the planet.” Schintler says this goal is at the heart of her work as the College’s first real foods coordinator.

The new position has been funded for two years by the Grinnell College Innovation Fund. The coordinator is responsible for promoting food sustainability, which can be anything from food sourcing and recycling, to garden initiatives on campus. They are also responsible for providing educational opportunities for the public in Grinnell and the surrounding communities

“My job,” Schintler says, “is to unite the administration, staff, faculty, students, and the whole community so they have access to and are engaged with a fair and just food system — a system that nourishes Grinnell’s community.”

Schintler has five years of experience throughout the food system, including food service, small-scale diversified farming, farm-to-school food sourcing, and food access. She came to Grinnell after being a FoodCorps service member, working with a Farm-to-School food sourcing initiative for students in Oelwein, Iowa.

Schintler’s duties include educating members of the local community about real food. She is working with Community Enhancement and Engagement, the Poweshiek County Extension Office, and Imagine Grinnell to build greater capacity for real food systems in the area. She also serves on the Center for Prairie Studies Advisory Board, bringing the food system into broader conversations about campus sustainability and social and environmental justice.

For example, she led a meeting this fall about how the community might come together to support Farm-to-School programs in the Poweshiek County school system. In the coming weeks and months, she will be drawing up a proposal for what the Farm-to-School program might look like for interested schools.

“My focus,” Schintler says, “is less on executing specific programming and more honed in on building coalitions using existing networks so that the community might direct itself toward change in food systems. In the process, I hope to support individuals and organization in lots of programming (of their own design) focused around real food.”

The origins of the real foods coordinator position can be traced to the work of Madeline Warnick ’16, when in winter 2013 she completed an independent study titled “Tracking ‘Real Food’ in Grinnell College Dining Services.” Her study found that only 7% of the food in the dining hall was considered “real food,” a percentage far lower than at peer institutions such as Macalester College, which has 20%, and Carleton College, which uses 23% “real food.”

Warnick’s independent study was the first and only time that the College has had such a study. Schintler, however, is working to change that by enlisting current students to help complete a new study by the end of this school year. sDick William, director of dining services, estimates 15% of the food in the dining hall is now considered real food.

The College aims to reach 20% “real food” by 2020 as part of the Real Food Challenge, which is working to shift $1 billion of existing college and university food budgets away from industrial farms and junk food towards local/community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane food sources — what we call “real food” — by 2020.

But, what exactly is real food? Schintler says real foods are foods that nourish all people and the planet. This not only means selecting locally grown or organic food, but also selecting food based on how it was produced. Fair trade and humane conditions are a critical part of the criteria. Any food can be real food, but not all food is.

“When you take into consideration the earth, communities, producers and consumers, you want food that is not just about the bottom line,” Schintler says. “It’s not just about feeding people, it’s about making sure the food you are eating is nurturing for everyone in that line.”

Since starting her position at Grinnell in August, Schintler has already made some major changes. She switched the source for the bulk of 6,200 pounds of tofu served each year in the dining hall from California to a local, soon to be certified organic source. She also led an initiative to bring more local foods to the dining hall, culminating on Oct. 11, when the dining hall served a wide range of local foods.

“Getting to highlight the local farmers we have in and around Grinnell was a real treat,” Williams says. “We will definitely be looking into doing this again.”

In the long term, Schintler hopes to make policy changes not only in the College but also in the Grinnell community as a whole to achieve the goal of truly nourishing everyone. She also says goals that promote real food from catering, the Spencer Grill, and dining services as whole can go a long way to helping the College achieve its goal of 20% real food by 2020.

Schintler is optimistic about the future of real food at Grinnell, saying, “Clearly Grinnell College does things very well. I’m a big proponent of doing well, but then always doing better, and going beyond doing good by making things fair and making them just, not just good. Because food justice is social justice is environmental justice.”