Farm-to-Fork at UC Davis Health
Sacramento’s Farm-To-Fork… Medical Center!
Sacramento's farm-to-fork movement has come in earnest to UC Davis Health, thanks to the vision of the hospital's executive chef (and farm-to-fork advocate) Santana Diaz.
Chef Diaz joined UC Davis Health in 2018. He is the former executive chef for Super Bowl 50 and the Golden 1 Center and the former sous chef for the Sacramento Kings. He has served as a judge and chef for Sacramento's prestigious Tower Bridge dinner as part of the Farm-to-Fork Festival.
Diaz and colleagues have upended the traditions of an industrial-sized food service at UC Davis Medical Center, home to Sacramento's most extensive production kitchen and creator of 6,500 meals daily.
Rather than relying on highly processed foods or pre-mixed heat-and-serve meals, his Food and Nutrition Services team is shifting toward whole-food and plant-based ingredients.
Visitors and employees can now enjoy locally sourced menu options, and we've also begun creating farm-to-fork dishes for patients — earning national sustainability awards along the way.
Our ultimate goal is to source most of our food program within 250 miles of UC Davis Health's Sacramento campus.
AWARDS
Practice Greenhealth 2024 award includes:
- Top 25 Environmental Excellence Award
- Circles of Excellence:
- Green Building
- Sustainable Procurement
- Water
Practice Greenhealth 2025 award includes:
- Greenhealth Emerald Award: This recognizes our organization’s ongoing commitment to improving its environmental performance and efforts to build sustainability and resilience into our operations and culture.
- Circles of Excellence Awards: Honors the 10 highest-performing hospitals in each area of sustainability expertise. Winners must achieve Greenhealth Partner for Change Award status, and demonstrate outstanding performance and leadership through advanced actions in that sustainability impact area.
- Circles of Excellence:
- Green Building
- Sustainable Procurement
- Water
- Food
- Transportation
Executive Chef Santana Diaz’s Story
From a young age growing up in a small Northern California town, Chef Diaz was surrounded by fresh produce and cooking with his family. Learn why Chef Diaz believes food is medicine and community is everything.
