University Dining Services puts more local partnerships on the menu

It doesn’t take a Top Chef to figure out that dining on campus has changed this school year. All across campus, University Dining Services (UDS) has undergone changes to improve the satisfaction of customers based on research, Director of UDS Ira Simon said. A survey was conducted to learn more about Dining’s target market and to uncover where individuals go when they don’t eat on campus and what they are looking for. Dining has increased its partnerships with local businesses in an effort to be more sustainable and to provide the Western community with what they are asking for. This year’s new and expanded partnerships include the Bagelry, the Bellingham Food Co-op and the Growing Washington Farm to Campus Program. The Atrium Simon says with the opening of the Academic Instructional Building, the population of campus has been moving south. As a result, the Atrium has become one of the more popular eating locations on campus, creating congestion that cannot be avoided at peak hours. In order to fix this problem, the Starbucks espresso bar was expanded and Pizza Hut was replaced with Pizza by the Slice, which will offer pizza for a reduced rate and at a faster turnover in order to serve more customers. “Brands typically yield higher satisfaction and higher recognition,” Simon said. “In this case, by switching brands, we were able to offer a better value, speed of service and more variety.” The price for an individual pizza at Pizza Hut was $4.35 and now a comparable option is $2.79. Simon is also happy to offer a $5 combo deal that comes with a choice of two slices of pizza and a drink. The transition to Pizza by the Slice also reduces the amount of products being composted by using paper plates instead of cardboard boxes. Although composting is offered at the Atrium, Simon says the pizza boxes were not composted because customers would purchase their item, take it to another location and eventually throw their box in the trash. Miller Market Miller Market along with Miller Hall underwent enormous renovations. After being fit into a temporary location last school year, the market has a new look with more space and organization. The market is more modern architecturally and offers a double-sided espresso bar. By dissecting coffee sales, Simon said the decision was made to switch from Starbucks to local, fair-trade Tony’s Coffee. Zoe’s Bookside Bagels A new bagel kiosk, Zoe’s Bookside Bagels, opened in Wilson Library. UDS partnered with the Bagelry to bring in a variety of fresh local bagels to serve plain, with cream cheese or as a sandwich. In order to provide more variety, Shepherd’s Grain bagels can also be purchased. These bagels come from a cooperative of Washington-based family farms that practice sustainable agriculture. Zoe’s also serves Tony’s Coffee and offers later hours than comparable markets and cafés on campus. Through their surveys, UDS learned that the largest amount of people who bring their lunch to campus are housed in Old Main and Bond Hall. Simon said they found that people bring their lunch because they cannot find something they want on campus for the value they are looking for. Around the same time period the library came to Simon saying they had the space and students wanted food in the library. Zoe’s is meant to combat these problems. Sodexo, the world-wide company, is currently providing food at 600 colleges and universities across the country and Zoe’s was originally to be a Sodexo brand Einstein Brothers’ Bagel kiosk. Einstein’s has proven to be successful on other campuses, but along with the Sodexo kiosk came a large menu that the library could not sustain. Because Einstein’s did not want to change its products for Western, Simon began looking at other options. He said Zoe’s was a more difficult move but that it met Western’s needs while allowing a local partnership. Zoe’s was named through a naming contest that was opened to the Western community. UDS received 800 submissions and at the end students and faculty had two different names that they ended up blending into Zoe’s Bookside Bagels. The café is named after Mable Zoe Wilson. The UDS website says that Wilson was instrumental in the creation and expansion Western’s libraries and that she was a part of committees to improve and expand the library systems in Washington state. Haggard Hideaway Another local partnership resides in Haggard Hall at the newly named Haggard Hideaway. UDS partnered with the Bellingham Food Co-op to offer a new selection of natural foods on campus. Simon said his team was unsuspecting about what the demand for the products would be. He had been previously been working with On Rice to create a Thai or sushi kiosk, but he did not have support for the undertaking. Another new feature in Haggard is Freshens fruit smoothies that moved from the Atrium with hopes to reduce the congestion and to give the smoothies a centralized location on campus. Residential Dining The largest change to Residential Dining this year is the expanded partnership with Growing Washington. Growing Washington is a non-profit organization that works with farms to provide local food. Last year Dining purchased $18,876 of fresh produce from Growing Washington and has been purchasing a significant amount more this year, Simon said. Thanks to a grant that a sustainability coordinator for dining had applied for, Students for Sustainability donated $3,500 to Growing Washington so they could lease the land to expand in order to provide more food to UDS. Simon says the local food comes at a cost to Dining. Although UDS has not raised their rates, the produce they are purchasing is significantly more expensive. “We were paying $2 a pound for salad lettuce and now it is $6 a pound,” Simon said. “It is more expensive than food that comes in bulk but it also helps the local economy, it is fresh and people recognize the quality.” Next time you are near a Dining location on campus, see for yourself what has changed for this school year. For more information about University Dining Services visit: http://housing.wwu.edu/dining/