UBC Undergraduate Research

Exploring ways to lighten the Pit Burger Bar's ecological footprint Jacques, Stephanie; Cham, Carol; Cheng, Jason; Lo, Charise; Cheung, Simone; Dang, Yvonne

Abstract

The UBC Food System Project connects students with stakeholders from UBC's Alma Mater Society (AMS) with the intent of providing opportunities to make the campus' food system more sustainable. The objective of our scenario was to work alongside one of the AMS food venues to propose a new menu item, or alternative ingredients for a current item, that meets the criteria of the AMS Lighter Footprint Strategy. This menu item should reduce the Ecological Footprint of the venue that we are assingned, which was the Pit Burger Bar. Our group reviewed previous LFS 450 reports, as well as peer-reviewed and popular literature regarding Ecological Footprinting and similar projects. We conducted an interview with the manager of the Pit Burger Bar to assess his vision for the project and assess the potential limitations regarding proposing a menu item. Also, a paper survey was developed to evaluate consumer preferences regarding current menu items and potential future options. The results of the consumer preference survey showed that beef burgers that were purchased the most but that there was a significant level of interest in having a greater selection of vegetarian and local menu items. Although addressing the ecological footprint of the beef patties would have had the most significant impact on the sustainability of the Pit Burger Bar, our group decided that we would focus on proposing a menu item that was meat-free and that made use of ingredients from a local producers. After researching an appropriate recipe, we came up with that of apple fries. Finally, we included recommendations for future LFS 450 groups, stakeholders and collaborators. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Item Media

Item Citations and Data

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International