By Charlie Cronk and Sofia Pieralde
On August 1, Dining and Event Services changed the prices of food items sold in campus cafes and diners. Along with these pricing changes, which upset many students, came various changes to the menu items offered. “The change in pricing is something that we do every summer as the spring semester winds down. Our culinary team evaluates the cost of goods, of all the items that we serve on campus, and they do menu adjustments, we add new items, take new items out, and during that process, we adjust all the pricing,” said Aaron Shook, Director of Auxiliary and Business Services. This price reevaluation is based on what the school pays for food, which has increased. “Cost of produce has gone up on average 10 to 15% as a cost. Protein items, whether that’s plant-based or meat-based proteins, have gone up, in some areas 20 to 30%,” Shook explained.
The price of board (food) at the University is composed of two costs: overhead and Dining Dollars. Overhead pays for salaries, utilities, supplies, repairs, and capital expenses, according to the DES website. Overhead costs $2,930 per semester for on-campus students and $1,145 for off-campus students. Dining Dollars are considered equivalent to U.S. dollars; the items in the S.U.B. “are priced to be 10% over the actual cost of the item,” said Shook.
Changes to the menu in the Cellar have been met with strong student criticism. A student petition was circulated via UPS Missed Connections and was brought up in a Cellar team meeting, says Cellar lead Layne Jacobsen. It demands that the Cellar bring back some student favorites that were cut from the menu like quesadillas, smoothies, bruschetta, and the meatball sub. Jacobson, who is a student DES employee, expressed that DES has a responsibility to meet student demands better: “What are the plans to do this? How are you managing this? You can see that the student body is obviously disappointed. How are you going to resolve that?”
In the future, Jacobsen hopes DES will include student staff in those decisions. “The student staff understand more than the management does about what is asked for at these outlets, what is demanded by students.”
For students struggling with the increased prices, Aaron Shook offered some suggestions. “The great thing about the meal plan is, when you use your Dining Dollars, when you run out of them, you can always buy additional dining dollars at a dollar-to-dollar purchase,” he said. He added, “Feedback for us helps when we get to the summer months, where we dive into all the menu changes that are to affect the coming two semesters.” DES receives feedback via QR codes found in each of the dining spaces on campus. “We have a Dining Dollars use chart on our website. It is just the meal plan broken down by divided by the weeks of the semester, which tells you how much you should be using, averaging, and where you should be at this point in the semester based on your meal plan,” says Chelsea Bairey, Director of Dining and Events,who recommended that students who are just eating their core meals and are still struggling should “reach out to campus resources in regards to financial support.” The Yellow House is one such resource; it’s open from 8 am to 10 pm every day and offers free food and accepts donated Dining Dollars via its website.