Grand Hall at SLU

The Grand Hall at SLU is a unicorn of a cafeteria that focuses on sustainability through the building’s design, lighting and appliances, and waste reduction efforts.  The Grand Hall does not offer disposable to-go containers. Instead, students receive a reusable clamshell if they are ordering to-go, and they receive real plates, cups, and cutlery if they are eating their meal in the cafeteria! This dramatically reduces single-use waste, cuts back on resource consumption, and saves money.

LED lights illuminate the cafeteria in the front and back of the house, Energy Star rated equipment saves energy in the kitchen, and they have a state-of-the-art dishwasher that condenses residual food and pushes water out of it, reducing the amount of waste that ends up in the landfill. They compost food their customers (students) don’t eat, keeping emissions out of the atmosphere and recycling food into healthy soil.

The cafeteria does not sell bottled water –  an amazing and unusual step for a university cafeteria to take. Bottled water is an extremely wasteful use of natural resources for a single-use item. It takes three times as much water to make each bottle than it does to fill it. It takes 17 million barrels of oil annually to produce – and that doesn’t even include the resources it takes to ship the bottles! The cafeteria does not use plastic straws either, instead offering paper straws on request only.

Sustainability is important to SLU. Their Green Billiken club helps their campus to reduce their environmental impact through education, recycling drives, alternative transportation awareness, and more. SLU’s campus aims become a Bee Campus, fostering an environment where bees and other pollinators can flourish through clever landscaping strategies that integrate native plants and pollinator-friendly flowers, improving the biodiversity of our region.

Since joining the GDA, the Grand Hall has dramatically improved their cleaning product sourcing, making a concentrated effort to only buy products with Safer Choice certification.  This improves the indoor air quality, health, and well-being for students and staff.

SLU’s partnership with Sodexo, the catering company who runs the café, is a symbiotic relationship, where each party helps to challenge the other to become more sustainable while providing the best possible experience for the student body.