5 things: Purdue to resume buffet style dining this fall

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:

Purdue University Dining will resume buffet-style serving starting this fall, per an email sent to residence hall students that stated that "Upon review and approval from the Protect Purdue medical advisory team, Purdue Dining & Culinary will be able to offer 'All You Care to Eat' service again in our dining courts starting at the beginning of the Fall 2021 semester," though carryout service along with On-The-GO! Grab and go meals will also continue to be offered. The email also announced that meal plans will revert to pre-pandemic offerings, with the 15-meals-per-week plan changing back to 13 meals and the 10-meal plan reduced to eight meals.

Read more: Purdue dining to revert to buffet style in fall

Major New York City financial firms are luring workers back to offices in part by offering free food, a traditional workplace amenity that is being threatened by the work-from-home environment induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Many of these businesses use food as carrots to reopen their offices and bring people back,” comments Dileep Rao, CEO of food ordering platform Sharebite. “When we talk to businesses, it’s like ‘$ 20 a day is fine’ [in food subsidies], I just want to bring people back to the office.”

Related:Food service menu trending: Celebrating foodservice's heroes again; chicken salad gets an upgrade

Read more: Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Bring Workers Back with Free Food

Washington D.C. Public Schools is the latest major urban public school district to announce plans to welcome all students back for five-day a week in-person learning when its 2021-2022 school year begins on Aug. 30. In making the announcement, Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee also promised a “limited virtual offering” for students and their families who aren’t yet ready to return to classrooms when the new school year begins.

Read more: DC schools plan for 5-day a week in-person learning

A recent USA Today survey found that some hospitals reported that only half their staff, including doctors and nurses as well as support workers, are fully vaccinated. “I think it’ll be a bit of a struggle to get to that 70% to 75% vaccination rate,” commented Stacey Gabriel, CEO of Hocking Valley Community Hospital in Ohio, an 80-bed facility where only 50% of the staff have been vaccinated.

Related:5 things: Congressmen urge allowing low-fat flavored milk in schools

Read more: Surprising Number of Hospital Workers Refuse the COVID-19 Vaccine

A compromise between the traditional office and full-time work-from-home, co-working arrangements and facilities are booming in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with real estate analytics firm JLL finding that “flexible space” (i.e., co-working space) should represent 30% of office space by 2030. AllWork, a website dedicated to future-of-work trends, notes that “coworking space as a percentage of total office space nearly doubled from 1.1% in 2017 to 2.1% as of Q2 2020.”

Read more: Co-Working is Poised for a Post-COVID Resurgence

Bonus: Is Your Hospital Looking to Offer Gluten-Free Programs? Here are Three Ways to Get Started

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]