Dining Services not only makes decisions about what food to serve in the dining halls but also how to serve it, when to serve it and how much to charge for it.
The best indicator of what to sell is what students buy, Ann Talley, director of dining services, said. Dining services also uses surveys, student feedback through phone calls and e-mail, focus groups, vendor food shows and food magazines to decide what to offer.
Ball State's Tasting Team, or T-Team as Talley calls it, is a paid group of students who taste foods in dining halls, judge quality and cleanliness of facilities and report findings to dining services management. Members of Dining Services management also take field trips to restaurants to get an idea of which items are most popular among college students.
"Dining halls are no competition for Indianapolis restaurants, so they're glad to tell us how they prepare their food," Talley said.
College students' taste for home-cooked foods is lessening, and their taste for restaurant food is increasing. College students today are the on-the-run, grab-and-go, portable-food generation, Elizabeth Poore, assistant director of operations for dining services, said.
Sophomore Reed Richardson lives off campus but chose to purchase a meal plan anyway. The Atrium and Woodworth are his favorite dining halls, because they're convenient, he said.
"It's really easy to just run over to Woodworth every day and grab food," Richardson said.
Despite the rigorous schedules of today's college students, many of them want to eat healthy foods.
"College students are a lot more savvy about what they are putting in their bodies than they were five years ago," Talley said. "We sell a lot of fresh fruits and fruit juices, and bottled water is our biggest selling item."
Many students feel the price of eating healthy in the dining halls is too high, but Talley said students sometimes pay less for fresh fruit and vegetables at Ball State than they would pay at a grocery store.
"If I didn't have a meal card, I would never eat in the dining halls," Richardson said. "The food is priced way too high for people without meal plans, and you could get more for your money at other places."
Dining Services sets prices each June for the upcoming academic year. Once prices are set, thousands of labels are printed for each food item and the prices are entered into the computers and cash register systems.
There are more than 11,000 menu items to consider, Poore said.
"We look at raw food cost, labor cost, any disposable paper products and labeling charges," Poore said.
The total cost is multiplied by three to get a retail price for a product, Poore said.
"Strawberry prices are set in June, but they are set for the entire year," Talley said. "There are times in January when we're losing money."
There may be times when strawberries are inexpensive at the grocery store, but the grocery can adjust prices every week. Customers expect that as the market changes.
"I don't think customers in residence halls would appreciate price changes too much," Talley said. "Not to mention, we would go stark raving mad trying to change all of those labels all the time."
The best way to track what students want to buy is through the cash register tracking system. The system tracks sales records daily, Poore said.
"If an item is a slow mover, we won't keep it, and we'll replace it with a more popular item," Poore said.
Dining Services tries to take student requests and comments into consideration when making menu decisions, Talley said.
We can't use every idea we get," Talley said. "Just because you like liver doesn't mean everyone likes liver, but we always listen. That's what's important."
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