Parents know: Teenagers like to eat.
And while some parents might look at their monthly grocery bill and let out a big “wow,” imagine what it would be like to feed an entire college campus.
For Rick Turner and Marc Foley, it’s not just imagination — it’s reality.
Turner is director of operations for Bon Appétit, the on-campus food service provider; Foley is Bon Appétit’s executive chef. And both play a huge (literally) role in keeping the University campus well-fed.
“I think Marc will agree that when he and I started here about five years ago, we were amazed at the sheer volume of food that is made every day,” Turner said. “He and I both had probably 20 years of background in the industry, but not in a higher-education setting.
“It still boggles my mind. We’ll get annual reports that will say how much turkey, for example, we used over the course of a year, and you sit there and go, ‘My God, that’s a lot of turkey.'”
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All in a single day The amounts of food prepared by Bon Appétit for University students each day: • 100-150 gallons of soup These figures don’t include catering jobs across campus — for example, Bon Appétit had 42 catering jobs Oct. 8, the day of the presidential debate. “From my office in Wohl Center, where dining service operations are headquartered, I see firsthand the huge daily deliveries and the massive food preparation efforts that it takes to feed a campus. It can be awesome.” — Steve Hoffner |
As might be expected from an operation this size (see box at far right), the day for some of Bon Appétit’s 220 campus-wide employees starts very early.
The first baker shows up around midnight; the cook for the soup starts around 4 a.m.; the bakery is in full swing at about the same time; and around 5 a.m. the commissary driver comes in and picks up the freshly-baked items to deliver them to one of the 17 outlets on the Hilltop Campus that Bon Appétit serves.
(The Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center and Whittemore House have their own meal-preparation arrangements).
“At just this location alone,” Foley said, referring to Wohl Student Center, “we get two tractor trailers a day worth of products, except for Sunday. Seventy percent of the food for the campus is prepared here and shipped out daily.
“We make fresh-baked goods every day, soups are made fresh every day, and most times made of fresh stocks. And our salad dressings are made from scratch, except for some low-fat dressings, and we’re even starting to make those from scratch now.”
Having a central kitchen where almost all food on campus is prepared is essential to the smooth operation of Bon Appétit. With the influx of fad diets, trendy foods and students who can have changing attitudes about health, diet and nutrition, flexibility is one of the keys to the success of a particular menu.
Every summer, Bon Appétit management and Steve Hoffner, the University’s director of operations and assistant vice chancellor for students, meet and retool the menu options using student feedback, or meals that have been successful or not in the past.
Each fall, a base menu is implemented. But during the course of the year, adjustments can be made pretty easily.
“If the chefs put out something they think will be fantastic and the kids just don’t take to it, we’ll make adjustments so that three or five weeks later they won’t serve it again,” Foley said. “And around Christmastime, they’ll retool the menu slightly.
“We love student feedback — if there are things they really like, it makes a difference to us. It’s hard to really change a menu in midstream, but we try to adapt to what the students like.”
Some of the more successful menu items include fried chicken, tacos, the breakfast bar and chicken fingers, of which the Bear’s Den alone goes through about 300 pounds a day.
“I think kids are a lot more educated and sophisticated about their food choices these days, but they also fall back to that sort of comfort zone,” Turner said. “I think you have to be a little more straightforward with them, you can’t necessarily have something that has a lot of ingredients in it, that is very complex.
“In a nutshell, we are just constantly trying to retool things and rework things. Since we’ve been here, things have been modified; systems have been put in place to help.”
Hoffner agreed that flexibility is a key to the success and is appreciative of Bon Appétit’s efforts.
“Bon Appétit has been our dining services partner for six years now, and I think they have done an outstanding job in managing a very complex and diverse operation,” he said. “They have proven that they can excel in meeting wide-ranging needs, from providing thousands of student meals each day to catering a gourmet dinner for University friends.
“Their staff is totally committed to preparing and serving quality food, and their ‘can-do’ attitude makes it a pleasure to work with them.”
The dining hall on the upper level of Wohl Center perhaps best exemplifies the can-do attitude.
The all-you-can-eat “board operation” includes meals for even the most discerning person.
One station features pizzas and pastas, another features traditional comfort foods. The grill has hamburgers, grilled chicken or a specialty item such as grilled salmon or top sirloin.
Another station has starches and vegetables; another with desserts ranging from regular to low-fat to sugar-free. The international line will have different foods from around the globe, such as stir-fry or Italian.
Vegans and vegetarians need not worry — a special section caters to those diets. A kosher serving is available every night. A baked-potato bar. A salad station. The list goes on and on.
And the best part is that the menu options change daily.
“On any given night, we have about 150 different items to choose from,” Foley said. “And the majority of the menu changes every day, we’ll have different salads, or different meals in our traditional line. Different desserts, different items on the grill are featured each day.
“A large part of that comes from hiring good, quality people. They are just awesome people and do a great job. A lot of food goes through here, and we need every single person — we count on them.”
And they count on the local community of growers. Bon Appétit is a national company based in Palo Alto, Calif., and has about 160 locations throughout the country in higher-education and business settings.
A main aspect of the company’s policy is to get involved.
“Bon Appétit likes to support the community and get involved,” Turner said. “They like to use local growers both for the freshness aspect and also help to support the community.”