Fedele Bauccio's USDA Agricultural Outlook Forum Speech

The USDA sponsored an Agricultural Outlook Forum on 'Sustainable Agriculture: The Key to Health and Prosperity' February 18-19, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia.  The speakers included Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, USDA, Fedele Bauccio, CEO Bon Appétit Management Company, Walter Robb, Co-President & COO Whole Foods Market, and Nina Fedoroff, Science and Technology Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State.
I recently met with Fedele Bauccio, and he provided me the details of his speech on 'Sustainability: A Transparent Dialogue With Customers' which I thought you would find enlightening.
For background, you may remember my previous interview with Fedele Bauccio from last year's Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference. Bon Appétit Management Company has onsite restaurants for corporations, colleges, and universities and specialty venues with 400 locations in 30 states, $550+ million in revenues, 10,000 employees, and over 120 million meals annually served. It has recently won awards from NRDC and EDF and introduced the Low Carbon Diet Online Calculator.

In Fedele's Agricultural Outlook presentation, he detailed his customers' interest in knowing where the food originated. As a result:

• At least 20% of their ingredients are purchased from a small local farm or artisan within 150 miles of each kitchen and are seasonally and minimally processed.
  
• A code of conduct for farmworker treatment was created and a ground-breaking agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers was signed.

Fedele says there are remaining challenges:

• Lack of transparency in supply chain for commodity products
• Veil of silence hiding unfair farm labor practices

Bon Appétit Management Company also found that customers want to know if the company is environmentally responsible. The company knows that:

• The Food system contributes as much as 1/3 of total greenhouse gas emissions on a global basis
• Livestock operations contribute 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, more than the transportation sector

As a result, they have:

• Implemented the Low Carbon Diet Program
• Reduced beef purchases by 33% and cheese by 10%
• Purchase vegetables and non-tropical fruit from North America
• Reduced food waste by 20%
• Conducted energy and water audits

Fedele says the remaining challenges and concerns include:

• Water issues: nearly half of the water consumed in the United States is used to grow feed for cattle and other livestock, while fresh water in the United States is decreasing at an alarming rate
• 70% of antibiotics are used for Animals and not humans
• Lack of Country of Origin requirements for all sectors
• Lack of information about transportation method information, and
  
• Inadequate data collection infrastructure

You can see the full Transcript, Presentation, and Webcast of Fedele's Presentation here.

Fedele has also recently testified for a Pew Commission Hearing on the House side regarding Antibiotics.

Fedele is a perfect example of a CEO running a large, successful, and growing company while doing great things for the World. We need more CEOs and Business Owners like him.

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