Trying Time

Food Service Director - Free Advice - Trying Time - Ruth Sullivan - Syracuse University

“The Try Me program introduces foods that customers might never try otherwise. Some of the items are simple like blueberries or apples, but then we try and do something different with them. For example, when we did blueberries we made a blueberry brownie. It’s about giving students a recipe but also making the food and saying, ‘here’s the blueberry brownie, this is how easy it was to make, how healthy it is and how good it is.’ Edamame and quinoa were big ones because most people have no clue what those are. People are often afraid to do something that they might not like. We’ve always just been like ‘try it.’ We also have black bean brownies that we’re going to try this year. People think that sounds awful, but you should be willing to try crazy things to get people’s attention. My advice is to be creative. We’re very lucky to have a creative marketing person. We all work together closely for the program. If you are not all together on it, it will fail.”