UC Merced’s Dining Services began bringing Produce on the Go, a mobile farmers market, to campus from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Wednesday.
The truck sells fresh, local and sustainably produced fruits, vegetables and dairy products and offers simple, affordable recipes and preparation tips. Produce on the Go parks near other food vendors between the Social Sciences and Management Building and Student Services Building and accepts cash, debit and credit cards, EBT and CatCards.
In addition, the Educational Food Literacy Program at UC Merced serves to provide students, faculty, and staff with a weekly educational engagement opportunity designed to promote food-systems awareness and access through informational sessions that feature local community farmers. The Educational Food Literacy Program is housed in the campus dining commons and serves not only as an active literacy session, but a maintainable alternative to a campuswide farmers market. The featured community farmers have the ability to sell their produce, serving the campus constituency with knowledge and access to nutritiously rich fruits and vegetables grown in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley.
The Educational Food Literacy Program encourages the campus community to source local healthy produce while promoting the campus’s effort to house a weekly farmers market. UC Merced Dining Services has also agreed to purchase the remaining leftover produce sold by the farmers and use those goods in the dining commons. This endeavor helps satisfy the UC Sustainability Policy requirement that mandates campuses to strive to procure 20 percent of sustainable food products by the year 2020.