Latest News
Highlighting local eating at Oneonta’s Seasons
By Tiffany Peden Sodexo Communications One part of maintaining a sustainable diet is eating local, seasonal produce, and SUNY Oneonta’s Seasons café makes it easy to do so.
Seasons opened 8 years ago with an idea to create a retail location that offered as much sustainable, local, organic products as possible, Oneonta Dining DM Jimmy Hamm said.
“The idea behind Seasons is we tie in all four seasons through the two semesters,” Hamm said. “We work with our produce company to create new menus regularly based off the growing seasons.”
Beyond that, Seasons also uses the freshly baked bread from Oneonta’s dining full-service bakery, including 110 dozen bagels made in nine different varieties every week. The location also sells items from local honey from McCoy Honey in Oneonta, maple syrup from Shaver Hill Farm in Harpersfield, and uses milk from Ronnybrook Farm located in the Hudson Valley. The coffee is from Stagecoach Coffee in nearby Cooperstown and Divinitea organic loose leaf hot and iced teas from Schenectady are also sold on location.
Oneonta Dining Marketing Specialist Joanna Foti then tells the story of the farmers they’re working with on a bulletin board in Seasons, to inform customers about the journey of the food and its local roots.
“Opening Seasons allowed us to bring in more local products,” Hamm said. “Students love Seasons and they love the product in there.”
Beyond Seasons, Oneonta Dining has also incorporated local food into the dining hall, with a Farm Fresh Station at Mills Hall, where they additionally have a small-scale composting program. Though they’re starting small with the composting, they are looking forward to opportunities to expand and grow this program.
“We’re ready to go, we’ll do whatever it takes to make a larger-scale composting program happen,” Hamm said.
He added that he is passionate about sustainability because he grew up on a farm.
“I know what it means to the farms and small business to have these opportunities,” Hamm said. “And it helps contribute to overall sustainability.”