While STU sticks to all-you-can-eat cafeteria, other campuses look to de-CAF-inate food services
After a long day of writing assignments and sitting through midterms, Novera Orishi decided it was time to reward herself with some food. She walked past the “glass menu of dread” as she calls the panel at the entrance of St. Thomas University’s cafeteria that lists the food options for the day.
She forced herself not to look at it.
After clearing her fourth plate of half-eaten pizza and sloppy pasta, she headed over to the salad bar to take a look. Raw veggies and limp leafy greens.
“Maybe I should turn into a vegan after all,” she said to herself as she left the cafeteria unsatisfied and just plain depressed.
Last year, St. Thomas moved to an all-you-can-eat cafeteria. But if you listen to both on- and off-campus students, it becomes painfully obvious that the change has not increased customer satisfaction. Complaints about cafeteria food may be a staple of campus life, but many in this millennial generation feel they are stuck with yesterday’s food services – a centralized system managed by the American food services giant Aramark – while other universities are exploring exciting new ideas like “pop-up” vendors, kiosks, technology-based ordering – all with a dedication to meals that are local and fresh.
Great expectations on small budgets
Patrick Watt is a food service consultant based in Saint John. His company, A Day in Life, oversees everything from designing kitchens and food operations for large institutional food operations like Moncton’s now-under-construction $92-million downtown centre to advising restaurants in the Port City like Britt’s, East Coast Bistro and The Ale House. As well, he’s worked with the Culinary Institute of Canada at Holland College in P.E.I. and Ryerson University in Toronto.
“They [millennials] expect more flavours, international flavours, they expect fresh and they want to know where their food comes from.”
Millenials like to eat with their eyes so a combination of good displays and good digital images is important according to Watt.
“The other thing is they want to use technology so if they can pre-order is a trend.”
With tight budgets and little time to cook, both on- and off-campus students depend on their university’s food options. Many universities in Canada like Ryerson and University of Toronto recognize this and have abandoned the old-fashioned model of a centralized all-you-can-eat cafeteria with strict hours of operation, said Watt.
Instead of having a single contract company to control food services, these campuses moved towards self-operated systems in which they select local suppliers – not just Subway or Tim Hortons – to provide food on campus and meet student’s wants: local, ready, fresh and fast.
Also, the traditional meal period is disappearing. Smaller restaurants or food kiosks with more flexible hours and more flexible offerings is what’s new.
“Instead of having one big cafeteria, you have a number of more cafés and kiosks operate,” said Watt.
Another option that’s being implemented in some campuses around the country is the “pop-up” food platform in which local vendors can have a week or two long run at a certain location.
The university administration or contractors reach out to the community and find, for example, eight different potential vendors. Each one would have a week to sell food on campus at the “pop-up” location. If their revenue is not worth their time, these potential vendors would know to rationalize their menus or prices or would simply stop coming back to the campus.
It’s not easy since a lot of promotion is necessary. But it would bring the variety students want.
“It all comes down to where do the dollars go,” said Watt.
In other words, it depends on students if this system works.
Students dig in on dissatisfaction
In 2015, the all-you-can-eat system was implemented on campus. Since then, to enter the cafeteria, a place where students once met to study or socialize, students must swipe their student ID or be charged anything from $7.10 to $13, depending on the time of day.
Every first-year student living on campus, like Olinda Diaz del Valle, is to be part of this meal plan.
“They value quantity more than quality so the food you receive isn’t good at all and it’s very repetitive. Tacos, burritos, french fries and the pasta sauces are always the same,” she said.
She said trying to eat healthy is a problem since the options are limited.
“Even the vegetables are made with butter and oil. The salad bar isn’t consistent either, they don’t always have many vegetables there.”
Orishi agrees.
“These are kids who only have access to the café food and we had to chow down bland boring food day and night every day. If I go in the café and there’s nothing I’d actually enjoy, I’d have to settle for random stuff because they would still charge me $13 regardless of what I ate.”
She had a campus all-you-can-eat meal plan for one semester before opting out.
“The meat servings at the grill was pitiful, like four to five thin slices were all you’d get for one serving of stir fry. I wonder how the athletes went about their day on so little protein,” she said.
Jeffrey Carleton, STU’s communications director, said the transition to an all-you-care-to-eat food system has been successful.
“They [the university] are constantly surveying students to see what their feedback is and they are taking account of those surveys,” he said.
Based on studies from the University of Missouri, an all-you-can-eat service leads to more waste because people don’t think twice about throwing food away as there is no consequence to their pocket books. Guilt is not as strong.
Students should feel they own all public spaces of their campus. Yet the all-you-can-eat food service restricts hundreds of students from entering a space that once was their study or socializing spot. This causes other areas on campus like James Dunn Hall to be overcrowded.
The Aquinian contacted Aramark, the food service provider STU contracts, for comment but they did not reply before this issue went to press.
Difficult but not impossible
Carleton, said STU has made a lot of changes over the past year, but the university is limited by the size of its student body.
“We have 1,800 students but really we only have about 500 students in residence which is your core for food services group. If those numbers are small compared to some of these bigger schools, you are limited in what you can do,” he said.
According to Watt, changing the financial model for food services is indeed a challenge. You have to find one that fits the campus without raising tuition, and small campuses like STU’s face special challenges. Still, it can be done. At bigger universities you might have more money to implement these changes but you have many more mouths to feed.
“You need to have an administration that is willing to look for these answers,” he said.
But it’s not all on the administration’s shoulders. There must be a willingness on students’ side as well, he said.
“We do surveys and we hear all the time that students want healthy. So we put in vegetable protein-based salads next to salad and what do you think goes more? French fries still reign king. I don’t want to say the demand is not there because we see it in the retail side, but there’s still a lot of kids who just want to eat pizza or easy meals, chicken fingers or stir fry.”
Watt said students are the ones that have the final say.
“It comes down to the students accepting the healthy and the local.”
