College students drive change in university foodservice

Colleges and universities make up about 2 percent of total foodservice spending, but the trends in university foodservice could indicate changes to come. For instance, college students today have more interest in organic produce and sustainable agriculture.

“Today’s college students really have more of an interest in the social consciousness things,” said David Henkes, senior principle for the foodservice research firm Technomic.

The trends that universities are seeing coincide with some of the overall foodservice trends that Technomic is seeing, Henkes said. There is a general trend toward health and wellness, and more people looking for “fresh” products. This generation of college students have also been raised on fast food, so they’re not going to suddenly begin cooking. They instead will look for more healthful options at restaurants and on campus.

The University of California Berkeley has been on the leading edge of university foodservice with innovative approaches to serving the 7,800 students that eat 22,000 meals on campus every day. The message that Shawn LaPean, director of Cal Dining, hears from students is “buy local, then buy sustainable, then buy organic.”

LaPean said Cal Berkeley was working backward by starting with organics. The university is the first in the country to offer completely organic salad bars, the first of which opened in April. Two more organic salad bars have been certified since then, and one more is scheduled for January.

Because the school is a public entity, LaPean said there were some hoops to jump through. For one, all of the contracts have to be bid on, but LaPean said it helped that the school’s produce supplier, Piranha Produce in Turlock, Calif., got its organic certification before the school did. The final and most difficult step was finding an organic salad dressing line that could serve all four bars.

LaPean used to purchase more fresh-cut produce before the salad bars went organic, but now he has to prepare the organic produce separately from non-organic produce.

“We used to buy a lot of value-added so I could keep costs low and invest that in the food,” he said. “We’re hoping economies of scale will kick in and costs come down.”

Since starting the organic salad bars, LaPean said he was surprised that the cost per meal has dropped about 10 cents. He can’t say for sure that more people are eating the organic salads, but it is clear that consumption hasn’t dropped.

Organic produce at the private Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., is a home-grown venture. Students at the college operate an organic garden, where they get market prices for whatever is produced. It’s usually not enough to feed the 2,400 students that eat in the college’s four dining areas, but it’s a way to fuel student involvement and offer organic produce.

Buying locally goes beyond buying from the student garden, said Matthew Biette, director of dining services. It’s a priority at Middlebury.

“We don’t look at it as innovation, which is probably innovative in itself,” he said.

About 25 percent of the school’s food comes from local sources. He buys three ways: from a broadline distributor, from a primary produce distributor and from individual farmers.

Biette’s supply of apples comes from two local orchards, and when their season is done he buys through a local controlled-atmosphere cooperative. This year, he was able to source local apples all the way through April.

Buying locally doesn’t mean purchasing within a few miles of the school, Biette said. He breaks it down to “political” regions, which means he buys from anywhere in Vermont and calls it local. That way, he’s still supporting the local economy but he can find a better supply.

He’s had to communicate the benefits of buying local produce to the students. He said they wanted products like “fair trade” coffee, but didn’t see buying local products as fair trade.

“They were slow to understand that, because they were interested in getting coffee from some small town,” he said.

It usually takes a few years for trends to make it from the coasts to the middle of the country, but local sourcing is already becoming a reality at the University of Missouri, Columbia, said Sandy Perley, purchasing coordinator for the university.
Perley buys for five all-you-can-eat cafeterias and three retail outlets. Last year, the university purchased about 46,000 cases of produce, enough to have three or four different fruits out at once. Most of that comes from a foodservice supplier in St. Louis, about two hours away.

Perley said she’s seen the push for local products on the coasts, and is trying to implement that in Missouri. The students haven’t been calling for it yet, but as they experience local produce in high school, she thinks the time is coming that students will demand it. It’s been a challenge, though, because growers in the area aren’t set up for foodservice.

The Missouri campus doesn’t have a fruit and vegetable preparation area, so the school uses fresh-cut produce. That also saves time, reduces labor expenses and adds safety. Perley said fresh-cut produce is more consistent, which is important when college students are selecting fruit or vegetables from a buffet line. She said students won’t touch a fruit or vegetable that is of marginal quality.

“Students shop with their eyes,” Perley said.

Storage has become an issue at Missouri, Perley said. They typically get shipments two days ahead of when they’re scheduled on the menu, so most of the produce is stored in coolers for two days.

“We probably cool more things than is best for optimum quality,” she said.

Buying locally at Cal Berkeley isn’t as much of a problem, LaPean said. Much of the produce he gets is grown in California.

Generation Y college students are using their consumerism to drive change to organic, local and sustainable products, LaPean said. They’re also looking for local tastes and flavors and more nutritious food with fewer trans fats. As the director of dining, he said he tries to focus on the sustainability aspects of the food, rather than the health benefits.

“I can’t be out there saying it’s better for you, but I can say it’s better for the environment.”