From sloppy joes to tofu: the campus food revolution

A recent lunch line at Kirsten Dika’s university snaked out the door with hordes of students waiting for a free meal. However, a sloppy joe or slice of pepperoni pizza was nowhere to be found: the plates were completely plant-based.

It was a pleasant surprise for Dika, who is vegan, that a food program at her school omits all animal products from its menu. She is in her third year of law school at Dalhousie University, which has a goal of hitting 50 per cent plant-based offerings by 2030. The target fits into a broader trend: Canadian colleges and universities from coast to coast are setting and surpassing sustainability targets for vegetarian and vegan food.

The vegan options at her school are plentiful, said Dika, whose last meal consisted of a hearty vegetable soup, bread, a slew of vegetables and apple crumble for dessert. 

“I was really surprised and happy when a bunch of my friends from law school wanted to go and eat there, and they're not even vegan,” said Dika, who is set to article next term for Animal Justice, a law organization focused on animal rights.  

“Most of the school isn't vegan. It can feel isolating, but the changes that are happening with the food service at Dalhousie, actually seem to be crossing those boundaries and bringing students together.”

The shift to more plant-based options is a response to demand from students, multiple schools stated in response to questions from Canada’s National Observer. Along with Dalhousie, other schools detailed their targets:

• York University hit 60 per cent vegan offerings in 2024.  
• The University of Toronto originally had a goal of reaching 20 per cent vegan offerings by 2021 at its residences supplied by the university’s food services, but have since reached 63 per cent. 
• Sixty per cent of food offerings at the University of British Columbia are already vegan. 
• Concordia’s target is 30 per cent by 2025, which would have vegan, vegetarian and meat offerings at an even split. 

The menu adjustments have the dual impact of meeting student’s needs while responding to climate change. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization notes that nearly 14 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide are from meat and dairy products. Meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of holding warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial temperatures will require at least some shifts in diet, notes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

At Dalhousie, Dika sees more of her non-vegan classmates turning to plant-based food offerings because of the climate impacts of meat.

“People are understanding that food choices matter and that they need to do better,” she said.

“They almost feel like they have a responsibility. I feel like people talking about eating a lot of meat, it's almost becoming kind of taboo.”

Veganism and food justice

Tammara Soma, a food waste expert and research director of Simon Fraser University's Food Systems Lab, says the uptick of plant-based initiatives at post-secondary institutions provides an opportunity to marry other aspects of food justice and sustainability. 

She points to SFU's food program, which includes meals made in collaboration with an Indigenous chef. Chef Steph Baryluk, who is Teetl'it Gwich'in, incorporates Indigenous food education along with her menu. “She's weaving in Indigenous recipes and traditions and values and ideas,” Soma said.

Plant-based and plant-forward (which does not eliminate all animal products) meals should be inclusive and cater to the cultural diversity within the student body, Soma added. 

“That cultural celebration aspect, sometimes it's kind of diminished in the push of, 'We need to do everything plant based.' And then it just becomes really dogmatic and alienating for students,” she said.

“But when you do it in this…way, where it is very celebratory, it's bringing a lot of people into the conversation. I think that makes it a much more effective way of promoting vegetables and fruits.”

Food offerings on campuses are inherently political, adds Sarah Dunigan, researcher and host of the food-focused podcast Anthrodish. Students pressure post-secondary institutions to meet their food needs, whether that be through more affordable or free offerings through co-ops and community fridges – or plant-based offerings. There is a long history of students using food on campus to “showcase their values…what they're wanting out of the system.”

Dunigan said an apt example is students at Toronto Metropolitan University, then Ryerson, pressuring the school to ditch its contract with multinational trucking corporation, Aramark Canada Ltd. in 2013, in exchange for a new contractor that promised to offer more local food. 

Vegan food pairs naturally with existing local and on-campus food initiatives, explains Dunigan. On one hand, trucking veggie dogs across Canada to meet plant-based goals would amount to greenwashing. However, pairing plant-based goals with targets around local food and offering affordable meals is a way to reduce emissions from food without gaining them elsewhere, she said.

Another example is the University of Toronto, which was recently ranked the world’s most sustainable university. It works with local food suppliers and donates to the student union food bank. Dunigan noted Trent University’s vegetarian food co-op cafe in Peterborough, which is “committed to serving locally, and whenever possible, organically-sourced food at affordable prices.” 

Any plant-based initiative should address other inequities and issues, such as food insecurity, which is rampant on campuses, Dunigan said. 

And while more students want vegan food options, some schools are working to strike a middle ground. 

At the University of Saskatchewan, there is no target for plant-based offerings, but at one of the school’s cafeterias, two-thirds of the food is plant-based, and their most recent numbers show that 21 per cent of food they purchased was local. The school noted “there has certainly been a noticeable increase in students and staff looking for vegan or plant-based options, however, it is still a smaller demographic.”

At UBC, the move toward plant-based offerings supports the school’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, using a baseline from 2019, explained university spokesperson Matthew Ramsey.

“We know that for us to be successful we need to significantly reduce the amount of ruminate animal purchases (beef, lamb and dairy) to achieve this target and plant-based eating is a significant solution to this challenge,” he said.

UBC had an original goal of 80 per cent plant-based food offerings by 2025, but has since ditched that target. The university said it has shifted the focus to “education and awareness to help students choose plants more often and red meat less often.”