Local and Sustainable Sourcing

Local and Campus-Raised Ingredients

Virginia Tech Dining Services strives to support local agriculture and source campus-raised ingredients produced by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

We define “local” as products that are grown or raised within 250 miles of our Blacksburg campus or within the Commonwealth of Virginia (Our definition of local ingredients is adapted from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education). We also work to source certified Fair Trade and organic items when appropriate.

Because of the scope of sourcing and partnerships, Dining Services is able to provide meals for many types of special diets including vegan, vegetarian, and halal. All dining menus also contain icons that allows students and guests to easily see if the dish contains any allergens or special items. 

Here are a few of our sustainably sourced ingredients:

• The Virginia Tech Meat Center supports student learning and research in the School of Animal Sciences. University-raised beef, pork, and lamb is processed at their Duck Pond Drive facility. Dining Services utilizes these products for special events and menu items on campus.
• Since 2017, Dining Services has sourced Virginia Tech-raised eggs from the university’s poultry facility, which are widely served in our dining centers.
• Two dining centers in Dietrick Hall, D2 and Deet’s Place, serve milk produced at the Virginia Tech Dairy Science Complex at Kentland Farm, located west of campus in the New River Valley. The milk from over 200 cows is sent to a Virginia facility for pasteurization before returning to campus.
• The coffee roasting program at Deet’s Place in Dietrick Hall purchases beans of from a sustainable, fair-trade producer in the northern highlands of Nicaragua, which is used for a third of the coffee sold on campus. Deet’s Place also serves a wide selection of organic teas.
• Homestead Creamery is a family-owned dairy company in Franklin County, about 50 miles east of Blacksburg.  Their ice cream is available at Deet’s Place in Dietrick Hall, and the popular milkshakes at Burger ’37 in the Squires Student Center.
• Hokie Water, available exclusively from Virginia Tech Dining Services, is bottled at its source, a stone-protected aquifer in Hanover, Virginia. Our bottling partner, Virginia Artesian, has engaged in third-party lab testing to verify its purity for over a decade.
• Rookies, a local ice cream company based in Roanoke, supplies ice cream sandwiches that are found in West End and Xpress Lane.