Ole Miss Dining Teams Up with Home Place Pastures to Revolutionize Dining on Campus

Ole Miss Dining recently announced a new partnership with Home Place Pastures in Como, which will bring a whole-animal purchasing program to campus.

This innovative new program aims to provide students and staff with a sustainable source of locally sourced, high-quality meat, while also supporting the local agricultural community.

Ole Miss Dining will celebrate the partnership with Home Place Pastures at the Ole Miss Gertrude Ford Student Union Plaza at noon on April 26 featuring a ribbon cutting ceremony with Marshall Bartlett and the Home Place Pastures team, local musical guests Blue Mother Tupelo, and a BBQ cookout where guests will be able to have an entrée provided by Ole Miss Dining featuring the product.

Under the new program, Home Place Pastures will provide whole animals, such as cows, and pigs to the dining halls. The animals will be humanely raised, grass-fed, and processed in a way that minimizes waste. The culinary teams will then work to transform the meat into a variety of delicious dishes, including BBQ, stews, and other entrees.

“I grew up with farmers and ranchers and as a chef, having a connection to food is very important to me and this partnership will have a positive impact on the University of Mississippi campus community,” Michael Brainard, Executive Chef of Ole Miss Dining.

By buying regional products, Ole Miss Dining hopes students can also learn more about where their food comes from, how it is grown, and make informed choices about what they eat.

“We are excited to be at the forefront of Farm to Institution partnerships and believe strongly in supporting local, sustainable agriculture,” said Chip Burr, District Manager of Ole Miss Dining. “Our mission is to be the leader in the Collegiate Hospitality space and establish the legacy of Ole Miss Dining as one focused on the betterment of our campus, the city of Oxford and the great state of Mississippi.”

Home Place pastures is among a small number of vertically integrated beef and pork farms in the US that raises and finish livestock on-site under strict federal inspection.

“Through this innovative partnership, Aramark, Ole Miss and Home Place Pastures are proving that closing the loop in local food systems is not only viable, but crucial for the health and well-being of our livestock, farmland, and local economy,” said Marshall Bartlett, co-founder and CEO of Home Place Pastures. “We can feed our next generation of scholars and leaders with healthy food that is grown, processed, and packaged right here in Mississippi, adding value to family farms, and creating jobs at each step of the process. It takes commitment, dedicated partners, and a lot of work, but we hope to use this model to create similar opportunities in our food system across the region.”

Home Place Pastures produces grass-fed beef, pastured pork, and pastured eggs using regenerative agriculture practices which focus on soil health and humane animal husbandry. The company also operates an on-site, USDA-inspected processing facility, where its livestock is harvested and processed for customers across the Southeast.

The Ole Miss Dining and Home Place partnership supports the University of Mississippi’s mission of providing a transformative educational experience for its students that fosters intellectual growth and personal development by cultivating a premium socially and environmentally sustainable dining experience that promotes the growth and well-being of its students and campus community.

Courtesy of Aramark communications