At Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., the student ambassadors who liaison with prospective new students and the campus community get a glimpse of cooking from scratch with fresh, seasonal ingredients from Bon Appetit Management Co., the campus foodservice contractor.

“We bring groups of students into the kitchen for cooking demos and take them on farm tours,” says executive chef Pedro Alfaro. “It is a way to let students know what we are doing and have them be a voice about it to the rest of the community.”

In a recent cooking demonstration for students, Alfaro prepared crème brulee and soup from locally grown butternut squash. “We told them why it is better to get ingredients locally than ship them in from Ecuador or Mexico,” says Alfaro. “We also bring in farmers who talk about the partnerships we have with them. We try to be as involved with the community as possible.”

Fall menus at the private university, which has about 5,900 students, also include local heirloom eggplants, potatoes of various hues, apples, oranges and kiwis. Fresh fruits are offered by the piece and used in smoothies, cookies and breads. In addition, the campus has an olive grove, which for the first time this year was harvested to produce a Biola olive oil.

Looking ahead, Alfaro envisions taking students to tour the Santa Monica Farmers Market or a sustainable family farm that supplies some of his seasonal produce.

“The students today are much more aware of what they are eating than they were years ago,” says Alfaro. “Hopefully, this will carry through and we will continue to eat more healthfully.”