Mary Clark Bartlett is CEO and Founder of Epicurean Group, a food service company she started in 2003 after noticing a lack of healthier options in institutional dining. She began her career in 1981 after studying hotel and restaurant management in California, and built Epicurean around sourcing fresh, local ingredients rather than cutting costs through processed food. The company now operates more than 60 locations with about 550 employees, serving corporate, educational, and senior living communities.
Under Bartlett, Epicurean has made sustainability a core part of its operations, launching the GreenTown Co-op initiative to eliminate styrofoam and petroleum-based packaging, an effort she says diverts roughly 21 tons of waste from landfills every year.
She argues that what people eat directly affects how well they perform and make decisions at work, and has pushed the company toward more plant-forward, minimally processed menus through partnerships with organizations like Slow Food.
