Tough Times Call for Tough Measures

               So I found another article online concerning what schools do when dining becomes expensive. It was posted on universitybusiness.com in 2008; so it’s not directly relevant with today’s food service problems. Although if history repeats itself we might find ourselves in the same situation once again.

               In 2008 prices of national domestic food went up 5% in just one year. Many contributed this to the rising gas prices, since this plays a big role in food prices. Consequently university dining services were hit pretty hard by this. Many schools implemented many small cost-cutting technics; some of which to the students’ displeasure.

Harvard had to slice tomatoes in place of cherry tomatoes and avoid using the more expensive chicken breasts. It wasn’t just in Massachusetts either, Louisiana State University decided to make pizza dough in-house and offer simpler meals like pasta in order to avoid passing on the costs to the students. Despite these measure the price of meal plans went up 7% from the previous year. Many of these kinds of tactics seem unfruitful. Is the students’ dissatisfaction really worth the small amount of gain acquired?

Other universities like the University of Massachusetts are cutting down on the portion size. This I’m sure garnered quite a bit of student opposition. They also planned on making their cooking process more efficient by digitally analyzing their dining services to eliminate waste and increasing the amount of customers served. I’m not sure whether trying to streamline the dining services would be worth it in the end, but it’s worth a try.

They even said that colleges with private contracts were trying to renegotiate their contracts with their food service provider, because of the rise in food costs. This should worry a university when costs go up, because much of the bill is picked up by the university in these cases. Although food service companies are not immune from the rise in costs either.

 Herman, Michelle. "Dining Halls Feel Squeeze From Soaring Food Prices." University Business 11.8 (2008): 12. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Oct. 2014.