5 things: Elior names top execs for its Healthcare, Education and Community Meals units

In this edition of 5 Things, Food Management highlights five things you may have missed recently about developments affecting onsite dining.

Here’s your list for today:

Elior North America has announced the promotions of Trish Spellman from managing director to president of Healthcare & Senior Living and of Paul Kowalczyk from overseeing the higher education division of Aladdin Campus Dining and Lexington Independents to president of the newly created Education segment of Elior North America, which includes K-12 by Elior. It also elevated John Kirk to president of Community Meals, which encompasses senior nutrition meals provider TRIO Community Meals, USDA meal manufacturing unit Traditions and LiveWell with Traditions, which offers meal delivery for Managed Care Organizations and Medicare Advantage Plans. In addition, the company announced the additions of Chris Aquilino as culinary development chef and Tom Heim as general counsel. Aquilino has been the owner/principal of a full-service, end-to-end foodservice consultant agency, served as the culinary director of Charlotte’s Lab Test Kitchen, and prior to that, served as the corporate executive chef of Envision Group for Compass Group.

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Read more: Elior North America Announces Leadership Promotions and New Hires to Support Fiscal Year Growth

College dining promotions firm BrokeScholar has analyzed Yelp data for the fast food chains within a two-mile (walkable) distance from 144 of the nation's top public universities and ranked the most popular national, regional, and local chains for each.  To found that Blaze Pizza was deemed the most popular, followed by Five Guys and Jersey Mikes and that sandwiches are the food type dominating across the most popular chains with 46 entries. Also, local quick eats chains earned the most stars and devoted followers as not a single national or regional chain earned 5 stars while three local chains (5th Street Burger & Fries at Arizona State, Veg & Go at UC Riverside and Mimi's at UIC Chicago) did. Of the most prominent mass-market chains, Chick-fil-A placed highest—at #4—followed by McDonald's at #5 and Taco Bell at #7.

Read more: The Most Popular Fast Food in America’s Top College Towns

Facebook and Instagram parent firm Meta Platforms Inc. is cutting back on cafeteria operations at its Menlo Park headquarters complex in California, leading to the layoff of 126 workers employed by Flagship Facility Services Inc. The layoffs come in the wake of Meta's move to cut more than 2,000 of its own Bay Area-based workers and its continued embrace of remote work following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic—unlike Apple Inc. and Google LLC, Meta is not requiring employees to work out of its offices. Last year, the company eliminated its free laundry service for employees and removed to-go containers from its cafeterias to prevent workers from taking extra food home with them.

Related:5 things: Valencia College closes cafeterias and will rely on food trucks, vending

Read more: Meta's cutbacks are resulting in the layoff of 126 contract cafeteria workers at its HQ

This month, Impossible Foods and Morrison Healthcare are announcing a collaboration to bring Impossible Beef and Burger across Morrison’s network of healthcare facilities nationwide. The new plant-based options will launch as part of Morrison’s broader efforts to revamp its menu with dishes like Curried Impossible Beef & Potato Bowl, Impossible Lettuce Wraps and a classic Impossible Burger. The partnership represents Impossible Foods’s largest menu collaboration in healthcare to-date while helping Morrison achieve its sustainability goals.

FM Top 50 firm ISS Guckenheimer has joined the new Beans is How Coalition as a founding partner. The Coalition’s goal is to promote soil health, improve nutrition and provide increased access to food at a lower cost by doubling the consumption of beans, peas, pulses, lentils and legumes globally by 2028. “ISS serves one million meals each day globally, crafted by chefs in more than 20 countries, which gives us a unique opportunity to create authentic, locally relevant menus that have lasting impact for our Placemakers, our clients and the planet,” notes Hamish Cook, ISS Head of Group Food Services.

Bonus: SNA Survey finds cost, labor and supply issues as top school meal program concerns

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]