Aligning with the client’s sustainability mission: garden addition 

Guckenheimer food services team wanted to better align with our client and their employees’ focus on sustainability. They did this through the development of an onsite garden on the client’s campus property. The garden and its locally grown produce offered a two-fold solution: an environmentally friendly food source and a healthier produce solution.   

Daniel Vercher, Executive Chef at ISS Guckenheimer: “We use all of the plant, from root to stem, in our cooking in our mission to create a sustainable solution for our own team and the client.” 

From waste to produce solution 

Our team started the garden by using their root trimmings and peels from produce to create a compost. Every year they plant produce based on the season and what the chef has in mind for future menu creations.   

Over the next two years following the initial development in 2018, the team has designed and built two seasonal gardens that now produce a wide variety of produce and herbs from cucumbers, potatoes, romaine, celery, carrots, peppers, arugula, radish, basil and more. In addition to being able to enjoy the seasonal, organic produce in the café, the customer’s employees are also able to purchase produce and dry herbs to help avoid oversupply and waste. 

The garden’s homegrown benefits 

Beyond the food supply, the ISS Guckenheimer garden has also provided added educational and cost-saving benefits. The customer’s employees enjoy cooking classes focused on vegetable cookery and hosted in the garden itself.  The café team has also welcomed culinary students and the customer’s guests to tour the gardens to showcase the partnership between the two companies and the joint focus on sustainability. This sustainable solution has saved the team $5,000 per year in produce purchases. With this savings the client has reinvested in the food program and purchased honeybees for the campus. The café team and the customer are working together to offer organic honey for the food program and employees to purchase.  

In addition to the cost savings, the team has received an overwhelmingly positive response from the client and their employees. 

ISS Guckenheimer customer’s employee: “I have worked for many corporate accounts and never have I seen such an amazing organic garden that offers so many benefits to the onsite employees. The program even allows us to take vegetables home and cook them for our family, extending the curated experience outside of work.”