Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 69

perspectives

fedele
bauccio

interview

By Stacy Shoemaker Rauen
Photography by Jeff Zaruba, Anthony Tahlier,
Charles Young, and Christian Columbres

How did your tagline of ‘food service
for a sustainable future’ come about?

HEAD OF THE CLASS
Sustainability and design find a voice in
corporate, university, and museum dining

Thanks to Fedele Bauccio, CEO and co-founder
of Bon Appétit Management Company, the
days of fast food served in dimly lit campus
food halls and corporate kitchens tucked
away behind copy rooms are becoming a
thing of the past. He has made it his mission
to bring memorable dining experiences built
around nutritious, tasty, and sustainable
food offerings to corporations, universities,
and museums alike. Here, he talks about the
needs of Millennials, how bigger spaces aren’t
always better, and his quest to fix the U.S.’s
agricultural model.

Why did you start Bon Appétit
Management Company?

If I took you back twenty-five years ago, the
food service in the contract marketplace—both
corporations and universities—was disgusting.
It was basically mystery meat: everything was
out of a can, a box, or frozen. I felt strongly that
there was a need for a customized restaurant
company that would work in the contract
environment—one that would hire great chefs
and make good, authentic, fresh food alive with
flavors. At that time there were no chefs in
this part of the business because it wasn’t very
sexy. The restaurant or the hotel side was, but
I knew that if I could create this little gem of
a company that could make great food there
would always be a need. So here I was in San
Francisco at the beginning of Silicon Valley.
I hired a couple of chefs and started to work
through a number of locations. The dream was
to create a customized restaurant company,
but I also wanted to create a brand that had an
emotional attachment; one that would make a
significant difference in the industry.

1
I was always a food nut. Early on I
challenged our chefs to go out and find the best
possible ingredients they could. And as you
can well imagine, when we went to a farmer
or a rancher twenty-five years ago and I said I
would buy all the arugula they could grow, they
laughed at us. But we kept at it, making lots of
friends and partners. I think we were the first
ones to coin the words ‘farm to fork’ before it
was even commonplace the way it is today. As
I forced the chefs to go in the fields and find the
freshest possible ingredients, I kept saying we
don’t need to mask it with all kinds of heavy
sauces and garbage. All we need to do is create
great food and the taste will be there. And so
that was the beginning of the light bulb that
went off in terms of our initiative of creating a
much more sustainable company in working
with local farmers and ranchers.
As we started to move into corporations—
Google, Yahoo, and PayPal—I also realized
that there was a need in higher education. As
Silicon Valley was hiring young people right
out of college, I felt that they would be the ones
that could set the trends of the future; they
would teach us about the issues of vegetarian
and vegan food, and now it’s gluten-free. Those
in college would be my customers tomorrow.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a
commissioner on the CUE [a national coalition
of health and consumer advocacy organizations
committed to empowering consumers to make
the best use of evidence-based healthcare]
for Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health, where we looked at industrial
concentrated animal feeding operations and
factory farms across the country. I realized
there was a huge problem between the model
that we have in agriculture and public health
in terms of the impact on world communities,
the environment, animal welfare, and the
whole issue of non-therapeutic antibiotics. I
felt strongly that if we were going to create
this differentiation and make change in
the industry we needed to partner with a

2

1. Lounge furniture makes
up the EDG-designed
student commons at Case
Western Reserve’s
Leutner Hall.

2. The dining area of the
Art Institute of Chicago’s
Museum Café, designed
by EDG, features a felt
wall installation.

hospitalitydesign.com October 2013

069


http://www.hospitalitydesign.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - October 2013

Contents
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - Intro
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - Cover1
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - Cover2
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 1
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 2
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 3
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 4
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 5
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 6
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 7
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 8
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 9
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 10
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 11
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 12
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 13
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 14
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 15
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 16
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - Contents
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 18
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 19
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 20
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 21
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 22
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 23
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 24
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 25
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 26
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 27
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 28
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 29
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 30
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 31
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 32
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 33
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 34
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 35
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 36
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 37
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 38
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 39
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 40
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 41
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 42
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 43
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 44
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 45
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 46
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 47
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 48
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 49
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 50
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 51
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 52
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 53
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 54
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 55
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 56
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 57
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 58
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 59
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 60
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 61
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 62
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 63
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 64
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 65
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 66
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 67
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 68
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 69
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 70
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 71
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 72
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 73
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 74
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 75
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 76
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 77
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 78
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 79
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 80
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 81
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 82
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 83
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 84
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 85
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 86
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 87
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 88
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 89
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 90
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 91
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 92
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 93
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 94
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 95
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 96
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 97
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 98
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 99
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 100
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 101
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 102
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 103
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 104
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 105
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 106
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 107
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 108
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 109
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 110
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 111
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 112
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 113
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 114
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 115
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 116
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 117
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 118
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 119
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 120
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 121
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 122
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 123
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 124
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 125
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 126
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 127
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - 128
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - Cover3
Hospitality Design - October 2013 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hd/201805
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nielsen/hd_200904
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