h Magazine (Heinz Endowments)

2013

On an unseasonably cool, drizzly afternoon in May, Jamie Moore drives to Susquehanna Mills, a canola oil processing plant in Montoursville in centralPennsylvania. As director of sourcing and sustainability for Pittsburgh-based Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, it’s Moore’s job to source quality food for his division, Parkhurst Dining Services, and make as much of that food local and organic as possible. In his mind, there’s no other way to do so than to follow food to its source. So, he’s inspecting oil and meeting processors.

Moore, 41, is passionate about coordinating food supply chains that utilize sustainable practices and aim to benefit everyone, including his own company and clients. Here’s the chain he envisions for canola oil: he’s showing diary farmers how to raise rapeseed, the seed used to produce canola oil, which will give them an additional stream of revenue; Parkhurst will then purchase and use this oil in their vinaigrette salad dressings and French fries and many other menu items available in their dining halls and catered venues; used oil will then be converted into biodiesel fuel, which will again benefit green-minded consumers. [read more …]