Ashland University is Proud to Support Locally Grown Food
Almost a Quarter of Ashland's Food Purchases Support Local Businesses and Food Producers
Ashland University is a proud supporter of many local businesses and brands that grow, make, and produce products right here in Ohio. This past year, 24% of costs associated with food for Ashland's Dining services went to locally based businesses.
AU is a proud supporter of these local vendors:
Smith Dairy
Located in Orrville, Smith Dairy is a local dairy producer that was founded in 1909. Smith‘s is one of our oldest business partners providing fresh dairy products like milk, sour cream and numerous flavors of their premium Ruggles brand ice cream.
Gerber Poultry
Ashland is proud to support Gerber Poultry, located in Orrville, which uses no antibiotics, animal by-product feed, or antibiotics in the production of their chicken. They run a certified humane processing center, which has also been certified by the Global Food Safety Initiative. Gerber provides our dining program with fresh quality chicken breast served in all of our dining locations as well as whole chickens for our Rotisserie station in the dining hall.
Nickles Bakery
Nickles Bakery has been operating for more than 100 years in the local area and has grown to provide distribution to seven states here in the midwest. The company is also involved in community causes, such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Relay for Life, and the Buckeye Cruise for Cancer. Nickles provides fresh breads and bagels six days a week to all our dining locations.
Turks Brother Meats
Turks Brother Meats is located in Ashland, OH and has continued to grow on the local scale since they opened in 1961, they have even expanded to custom processing specialty meats, like buffalo, goat, and elk. Turks provides some of the beef products used in our campus dining facilities. After having numerous issues with quality and consistency with our ground beef we turned to Turk Brother Meats Located in Ashland. Turks ground beef is used exclusively in all of our dining locations.
Gordon Food Service
Gordon Food Service provides a wide variety of products to the AU Dining program. The company has grown from a small local company to a national brand in it's time and now provides distribution throughout the United States.
Everleaf Aquaponics
Locally grown produce located in Shiloh, Ohio. Dining Service is currently utilizing severals types of lettuce featured on our Salad Bar and deli.
Velvet View Farms
Velvet View Farms is located in Big Prairie, Ohio, and provides yogurt items to Ashland University's dining facilities. The farm is home to 70 Holstein cows, both the black and white and red and white varieties. Each cow has its own name and provides on average 3,000 gallons of milk per year, which is used to create delicious yogurt for AU students and Velvet View Farms customers. Velvet View Farms is one of our newest local producers. Velvet View makes a high quality traditional and Greek Yogurt just 30 minutes south of Ashland.
Flour Barrel
The Flour Barrel is an Ashland - based company that provides bulk and deli foods. Located on Claremont Avenue, the store resides close to AU's main campus. Flour Barrel has become a great resource of specialty products for our baking department. Numerous seasonal items are purchased for decorating our cakes, cookies and pies giving them the award winning look.
Buehlers
Buehlers is a local grocery chain headquartered in Wooster, Ohio, less than 25 miles from AU's main campus. The store was founded by Ed and Helen Buehler in 1929. Since then, the store continues to be operated by the Buehler family.
Blue Ribbon
Blue Ribbon Meat Co. is a provider of beef products and is a proud Ohio-based company. Blue Ribbon Meats provides high quality beef products for some of our high end catered events.
Friendly Wholesale
Friendly Wholesale Co. is a wholesale supplier of food service products and a Wooster, Ohio based company. Friendly Wholesale provides all of our candy for the concession areas on campus.
Orlando Baking Co.
Orlando Baking Company produces more than 250 varieties of breads and rolls. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, this Ohio company has been operating for more than 140 years, and was originally founded in Italy.
Hillers Country Market
Area's Largest Cake Decorating & Candy Making Supplier