Berea College, a small liberal arts institution in eastern Kentucky, began a food-waste composting program in 1998 to reduce waste and generate a partial or complete substitute for commercial, peat-based, potting mix in its horticultural greenhouse. Initially the program focused on pre-consumer food waste from the food service kitchen, but later expanded to include post-consumer food waste as well. The per-capita food waste generated as estimated at about 0.4 kg per day. All food waste was mixed with farm and landscape wastes for composting. Part of the composting operation was moved into a greenhouse during the winter to supply heat for seed germination and plant production. The composting system was evaluated economically using the costs of collection, handling, and composting and the value of the finished product in terms of nutrient composition and sufficiency as a partial or complete substitute for commercial potting mix. Bioassays were used to test the suitability of the compost made from pre-consumer food waste as a partial or complete potting mix with lettuce used as the test crop. The overall evaluation indicated that the finished compost was suitable as a partial substitute for commercial potting mix and that the composting operation was breaking even financially. Problems with contamination in the post-consumer food waste collected rendered the finished compost suitable only for field application. Moreover, an economic analysis indicated that collection and composting of this fraction of the waste was unprofitable.