Let’s address the animal in the room, whether it’s a chicken or a pig. The McIntosh dining hall food is not good. It’s edible, though most of the time it doesn’t even seem like it. The only options you can really trust is the food that isn’t already cooked or prepared, like the salad bar or the sandwich bar, because you decide what goes in it. Now, the food isn’t always so glum, sometimes the chef will make special meals, but I feel like that should be the normal, everyday dish. Then most of the time you can rely on the Simple Servings station. But this low quality food isn’t the staff’s fault, it’s the company that our college has chosen to supply our food: Sodexo.
I think ONU should switch food providers because, in my opinion, the food is awful. It is repetitive. It seems like we eat the same dry pork and chicken almost every day. There’s just this limited selection on the type of meat we’re served. The overall quality of the food is poor. For example, I believe the quality of the soup is inconsistent. The New England Clam Chowder, for example, is sometimes creamy and it’s really good, then other times it’s extremely watered down. The same goes for the broccoli cheddar soup, and the occasional mushiness. Then you have the pizza. That can’t be bad right? I mean, how do you mess up pizza? Well, I can’t put my finger on it, but something is off. Maybe it’s too much cheese or maybe the sauce needs to be seasoned, I’m not sure, but it’s something.
Now, since that’s been addressed, have you ever wondered what other places Sodexo provides food for? That would be prisons and the military. Now, while Sodexo may not provide services for any type of prison facility in the United States, they do provide services for 84 prisons in Europe and Chile. They also fully manage five prisons in the United Kingdom. To add to that, they serve the U.S. military. Do with that what you will.
So, let’s ask the big question. Why are we paying so much for bad food quality? The 19 meals a week plan costs $6,900 and is increasing to $7,100. Every freshman is forced to be on this meal plan their first semester. But of course, you have the option to pay less for less meal swipes with the 12 meals a week plan. This costs $6,300, but wait—what is this increasing to? Nothing. It won’t exist. But what will exist is a 14 meals a week plan. That’s right folks and it’ll only cost an extra hundred dollars! You might be wondering how I know this. Well, you can find this information under Tuition and Fees on the ONU website. We were sent a direct email about a price increase of 3.98% for our tuition in November, but shouldn’t you have been informed about the meal plan price increase specifically? Yes! We deserve to be informed of these changes rather than suddenly finding them in the depths of the website, especially when those changes are huge and include a complete removal of a meal plan option. Prices are increasing, options are being minimized, and some of us are forced to be on this meal plan. All of this for some unseasoned slop from Sodexo.
ONU, I love the number of options in the dining hall, but can we have better ingredients that go into this food? Let’s try locally sourced ingredients from local vendors and businesses. We don’t need a big company that has so many other organizations to provide for, our chefs might just need good resources. So, ONU, I kindly ask you to please consider changing the food service provider for this lovely school.