Going Green

John Lawn

By John Lawn

The voice belongs to Shawn LaPean, director of dining at the University of California-Berkeley, who clearly has been working both sides of this equation since he assumed the director's position at Berkeley almost three years ago. The department's revenue is up significantly since then and so are purchases of non-resident meal plans.

With two major renovations completed, LaPean is making good on his promise to diversify and enhance the dining options available to his customers. A commitment to bringing more culinary talent to the department is also paying dividends in terms of menu offerings, customer satisfaction and front line interactivity.

The impact of such changes is clear: Cal Dining's customer satisfaction scores in NACUFS' annual benchmarking survey have risen 30 percent in the past two years.

Finally, on the social front, two campus buildings were recently certified "green," both of them primary dining sites. As the first buildings on campus to obtain the designation, they've helped make Cal Dining a campus and community leader in terms of raising environmental awareness among students.

"For us, the issue is not just environmental awareness, although that is important," LaPean says.

"It's also bringing the idea of continuous improvement to our business strategy. That means growing our programs and sales in ways that both help fund these best practices and also sustain and improve the sense of campus community we have here in Berkeley."

A meal plan and retail review
After LaPean joined the Berkeley dining team in January, 2003, he began working on what he viewed as the dining program's major "dis-satisfiers" first.

The old meal plan was one of the biggest of these. It was traditional, based on a set number of meals per week (10, 14 or 19), with unused meal credits expiring at each week's end. Retail equivalency was low ($3.25 in cash for a meal credit). Students viewed the program as a poor value, disliked its lack of flexibility and complained that credits could not readily be used for guests.

The school's foodservice image had also been compromised by an article on campus dining inThe Wall Street Journal the previous November. It rated foodservice at ten prominent schools and placed Berkeley at the bottom of the list, below several peer institutions.

The new meal plan now in place is pointsbased (one point equals one dollar) and can be used at any of the ten campus points of service, whether retail or all-youcareto-eat. There are no daily minimums or maximums and points can be used freely for guests, late night service or at the university's weekly produce stand.

In the standard plan, students purchase 2500 points for the year and are awarded half at the beginning of each semester (up to 100 unused points can be rolled over from fall to spring). The premium plan includes 3000 points plus an additional $350 in credit. All-you-care-to-eat meals cost five, six or seven points, depending on daypart, and points can be freely used in retail operations.

Improved communications with the customer base and with the university community was also high on LaPean's list. The department laid the groundwork for the new meal program with an extensive series of surveys, interviews and other input-gathering tools, using the findings to support planned changes. It also began a more integrated program to internally market the department.

A new identity—Cal Dining—was established, with logos, a customer-focused business philosophy and goals that were communicated widely to both staff and the customer base.

"We saw our first job as one of clearly letting all of these groups know that a change was taking place and the direction in which we were headed," LaPean says. One of many examples: a quarterly parent newsletter that spelled out Cal Dining's operating philosophy, highlighted the contributions of dining staff, talked up planned changes and emphasized how the new meal plans would benefit students.

Crossroads, the largest campus dining hall, had just completed a major renovation as LaPean joined the department. Its contemporary design offered a platform from which to showcase some of the new thinking.

Station concepts were evaluated and in some cases modified. Late night hours in retail operations and late-night "pick up" service for residential customers were introduced. So was a continuous dining schedule that met with immediate approval. Today, Crossroads handles over 4,000 meal transactions daily and another 1500 from a small retail location in the same building.

A complete review of the campus retail environment also turned up several opportunities, although, "it's important to keep in mind that we do not have retail exclusivity on the campus," LaPean notes. "We only operate four of the 24 retail points of service available to students."

Overall, these four locations had been losing about $400,000 a year. One of these was a failing burrito station with about 120 transactions a day; it was revamped into a "madeto-order" sandwich concept that now averages over 1100 sandwiches a day. The others were made over into c-store/retail hybrid operations that better serve the needs of the 1500 apartment dwellers on campus.

This year, retail operations will have achieved close to a $2 million turnaround, according to LaPean, with cash sales up 30 percent and a net bottom line of about $1.6 million.

One area where LaPean can claim his greatest success has been in the promotion of meal plan purchases to non-resident students. They can choose from a three-tiered program that offers them between 1300 and 2400 points per academic year and which otherwise operates identically to the on-campus residential plan.

Three years ago, only 400 off-campus students purchased meal plans from the department. That number is now close to 1500, and represents additional program revenue of about $1.6 million.

A chef in every hall
To support a greater emphasis on the culinary side, LaPean looked for ways to shift the department's labor mix. A significant portion of the daily sandwich production was outsourced to a local provider, reducing repetitive prep tasks. CIA-trained Chuck

Davies was appointed to a new position, assistant director/executive chef, and several formally-trained chefs were hired to help him upgrade the food quality and appearance at the individual dining halls.

As one result, unit managers are beginning a shift from traditional cycle menus to seasonal menus that are projected out only for three weeks, not a full semester. Health and nutrition issues have also received greater emphasis in the new programs.

"Although there were always dietitians on the staff, their roles were not always student-focused," says LaPean.

"We wanted to ensure that a dedicated RD will be available for customers at every dining commons, and that students feel comfortable in seeking knowledge in this area. Allergy issues are a significant concern for many students; but beyond that, nutrition generally should be part of the dining commons culture. The students' experience here should teach them how to eat more healthfully in their lives ahead."

The chefs are also committed to these goals and have worked on reducing transfat oils and making other changes that contribute to more healthful nutritional pro- campus residential plan.

Three years ago, only 400 off-campus students purchased meal plans from the department. That number is now close to 1500, and represents additional program revenue of about $1.6 million.

A chef in every hall
To support a greater emphasis on the culinary side, LaPean looked for ways to shift the department's labor mix. A significant portion of the daily sandwich production was outsourced to a local provider, reducing repetitive prep tasks. CIA-trained Chuck

Davies was appointed to a new position, assistant director/executive chef, and several formally-trained chefs were hired to help him upgrade the food quality and appearance at the individual dining halls.

As one result, unit managers are beginning a shift from traditional cycle menus to seasonal menus that are projected out only for three weeks, not a full semester. Health and nutrition issues have also received greater emphasis in the new programs.

"Although there were always dietitians on the staff, their roles were not always student-focused," says LaPean.

"We wanted to ensure that a dedicated RD will be available for customers at every dining commons, and that students feel comfortable in seeking knowledge in this area. Allergy issues are a significant concern for many students; but beyond that, nutrition generally should be part of the dining commons culture. The students' experience here should teach them how to eat more healthfully in their lives ahead."

The chefs are also committed to these goals and have worked on reducing transfat oils and making other changes that contribute to more healthful nutritional profiles in the foods they prepare.

"While you could never eliminate many traditional comfort foods from college menus, our goal is to ensure that even those that are high in fat and calories are prepared in the most healthful manner possible," La-Pean says.

Building community
These and other improvements were initially promoted to the campus community under the Cal Dining umbrella, but LaPean now sees the program entering a new phase. "Increasingly, we are looking to manage our four different dining halls as 'neighborhood brands' with their own identities," he says. "They represent individual living communities, each with its own needs and a desire for some local control."

In practice, that may mean a late hour a la carte program at one hall, a lounge dining environment option in another and specialized menu or station concepts in a third.

"We think that providing each neighborhood with its own dining traditions and options will encourage pride and a sense of ownership that will lead to more cross utilization of facilities across the campus. Word of mouth communication remains our most effective means of promotion," he adds..

The renovation last year of the dining hall in the historic Clark Kerr part of campus (originally built as the California School for the Deaf and Blind in the early 1900s,) shows how the department has moved in this direction in practice.

The dining hall there is a multi-use facility, serving resident students and faculty but also providing catering services for the campus conference center; its kitchen also handles meal service for a child care program and a city senior living facility.

In contrast to the contemporary look and feel of Crossroads, Clark Kerr offers a more refined, classic atmosphere with Mediterranean influences. In addition to the high-ceilings in the main hall, there are two patios, two smaller dining rooms and an executive dining room used for special events.

The role of Clark Kerr's executive chef, Ida Shen, typifies the way LaPean sees its neighborhood culture being developed. An award-winning culinarian who trained in France, Shen has become something of a campus celebrity with her display cooking demonstrations and hands-on approach to upgrading the Clark Kerr dining program. She invites customers to participate in menu planning, keeps them informed about the financial and operational implications that specific menu options entail and strives generally to give the primary Clark Kerr customer base a sense of its own dining community.

"Our student base is largely from what some refer to as "Generation 'Y'," and many of them have a sense of responsibility to the future that is much more pronounced than it was in my generation, or some of the others since then," LaPean says.

"That is why they have an interest in the environment and in sustainability—they are looking to preserve the quality of that future. So being green is not something done for its own sake, but for the larger community going forward."

One of the issues in trying to make campus dining programs more sustainable has historically been that such programs have an added cost, LaPean acknowledges.

"That's the biggest impediment—it is one thing to want to be a good environmental citizen, but it is another to tell a university it should increase its student fees to do so. It was the added revenue from non-resident meal plan sales that largely helped fund the additional costs of the recycling and other new programs.

"We want to be completely transparent about our costs to the students and to the university. But we have also worked hard as an organization to find ways to increase our revenues and, in doing so, use that growth to cover those costs. That is an important part of what we mean when we say we want the department to have ' sustainable growth.'"