Decision In: Bon Appétit New Food Provider 
by Nina Lalli

Bonjour. Your new dining service is Bon Appétit. 
The College signed a letter of intent this week. Come fall, the Palo Alto-based company will take over the former role of Sodexho Marriott Services. This is the final decision after a long process involving Residential Life and Services, students and faculty from the Housing and Dining committee and members of Oberlin Student Cooperative Association.

Director of Residential Life and Services Kim LaFond said, “We worked diligently to look into these companies.”
“It was quite lengthy and extensive and we had outside help as well,” Vice President of Finance Andy Evans said of the process. 
Finalists were narrowed down to Parkhurst, Bon Appétit and Chartwells. Parkhurst was popular with students but Kim LaFond said he thought that perhaps it was too small a company to meet the needs of the College. 
“It’s a nice little company,” LaFond said, “but is it too little?” 
“I think we chose a vendor that, to my mind, services venues like ours,” Evans said. Evans said Bon Appétit is very successful with small liberal arts colleges. 
LaFond and Evans both said they expected the biggest immediate change in food services to be the overall quality of the food. They expect bigger changes to occur gradually as Bon Appétit gains a sense of the many needs of the campus. 
“The quality of food is really going to be up. That’s the biggest change we’re gonna see,” LaFond said. 
Evans said “It’s not gonna be like we suddenly turn the whole place upside down. It will be a process.”
One additional change for the fall is the decision to change the acronym CDS, Campus Dining Service to OFS, Oberlin Food Service. 
LaFond mentioned the short-term goal of solving some logistical problems such as the long lines at Dascomb over the course of next year. He hopes to eventually change the meal plan to accommodate different students’ schedules. He used the example of “being able to use your meal plan multiple times during a meal period,” he said. “We’re carefully looking into that.”
Among the improvements students reported wanting to see from the new company was more openness for students living off-campus to eat completely off-board. LaFond said he hoped to accommodate students as fully as possible in the future, but added that it is difficult to make such decisions immediately. For now Bon Appétit is focused on attracting students to the food they will offer.
“They recognize our concern that we have a requirement that off-campus students eat on-campus and they’re looking for opportunities to change that,” Evans said. 
Students also expressed an interest in the utilization of local produce in the future dining service. Evans said that question was raised with each of the companies vying for the position, but all of them noted the difficulty of making that happen. Each company cited the problem of the school year missing the local growing season. 
A local chef is being considered for the job of head chef by Bon Appétit, allowing its management to take advantage of regional connections. 
Evans said, “Bon Appétit suggested individuals that have an understanding of this region, and who would try to access as much local produce as possible.”
LaFond said he expects Bon Appétit to continue to seek student input in the form of focus groups and surveys in the fall.
One of the specialties of Bon Appétit is its ability to provide a myriad of vegan and vegetarian food options beyond the standards. The company will plan menus in collaboration with the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York, which is known for its high-quality vegetarian dishes.
A memo from Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith is scheduled to go out to the College community today. In the memo, Goldsmith said, “Its emphasis on the use of fresh ingredients, and its collaboration with the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, NY in the preparation of menus, suggest that they will have a special ability to meet needs of vegans and vegetarians, who represent an unusually large percentage of students participating in our dining program.” 

For background information on this story, see page 7.