9 glimpses into the future of C&U foodservice

This week, the University of Massachusetts hosted 375 foodservice-industry professionals from college and university foodservice and beyond for its annual Chef Culinary Conference, now in its 21st year. Here are some of the key takeaways.

1. Gluten-free plateauing?

To kick off the conference, Garett DiStefano, executive director of residential dining at UMass, which serves 45,000 meals a day, shared the results of the university’s most recent student survey. While expected items—fruits and vegetables, healthy beverages and whole grains—all are growing in popularity, with more than 80 percent of students wanting more, the desire for gluten-free options had begun leveling off and even falling off between fall 2014 and spring 2015. DiStefano noted, however, that requests still are high.

2. Menus will target low anxiety, high performance

Referencing a May 2015 story in The New York Times reporting that anxiety has overtaken depression as the most common mental-health diagnosis among college students, DiStefano shared that UMass Dining’s survey is beginning to look at the correlation between how students eat and how they feel. Early results confirm a connection between healthy eating and lower anxiety—especially in UMass’ Hampshire Dining Commons, which was renovated in 2013 to focus on health, sustainability, world flavors and community.

3. Ad hoc eating will continue to shape operations

One common theme of the conference was that students want what they want, how they want it, when that want it. And that will continue to effect how dining programs serve meals, said June Jo Lee of research company The Hartman Group.

Dining departments will need to consider young diners’ tendency to deconstruct their meals, snacking and eating smaller meals more times a day as they determine hours of operation and meal-plan structures. In designing dining halls and grab-and-go concepts, foodservice directors need to remember that many students didn’t grow up sitting down to eat at a dinner table and that they are ambidextrous eaters, often working or texting as they chow down.

In research Hartman conducted for UMass, for example, they found that students felt that food was held hostage in the dining hall because they weren’t allowed to take it out.

4. Time to tap into the participation culture

In the digital era, consumers are players, Lee said, and food is content. More and more, students want not only transparency so they can make choices about the food they eat, they want to have a say in what is being offered.

5. You better be on board with tech, like yesterday

Foodservice directors who spoke at the conference acknowledge the role that technology plays in messaging to students and receiving feedback. They accept that they have eight seconds and 140 characters to connect, even if they don’t fully embrace it because it goes against their own preferences.

The bottom line: Operators cannot afford to ignore technology or even grumble about it, because consumers are incredibly optimistic about the connection between technology and food. According to The Hartman Group, 82 percent of consumers believe technology has improved how well they eat, Lee said.

6. Dipping sauces can be transformative

At least a couple of speakers mentioned the potential in dipping sauces as an inexpensive way to impart adventurous flavors and more nutrition, especially as menus shift more toward plant-based entrees.

7. There’s a bowl in everyone’s future

“The bowl is going to be the [menu] standard,” author and sustainability expert Mark Bittman told the audience during a fireside-style chat. What will most likely be in that bowl—a cooked vegetable, cooked grain, some kind of protein and some kind of sauce, he predicts—offers potential for creativity and differentiation for operators. Trendspotter and Gordon Food Service Corporate Consulting Chef Gerry Ludwig seconded that notion, naming healthy bowls among his top trends of 2015, noting their applications for all dayparts.

8. Chef-doctor dinners: the next big thing?

Offering a view from the competition, Eric Wendorff, executive chef of corporate operations for Wegman’s supermarkets shared that chef-doctor dinners have been successful special events for his operations.

New York City restaurateur is leading the charge with his “The Chef and the Doctor” series of events, and the applications for noncommercial operations are clear. Notes Wendorff, “Consumers love the connection, and [the idea of ] a chef understanding the benefits of a food in the body.

9. Plant-based foods are the future

At a conference with the theme “The Future of Food” perhaps its no surprise that the one message that permeated through all of the education sessions, directors’ panels and cooking demonstrations is that plant-based foods are the future.

Learnings ranged from a UMass professor sharing the success they’ve had with meat blends (in tests, they’ve been able to get up to a 45 percent ratio of button mushrooms into a beef taco filling before diners are able to taste a difference) to a ever-growing evidence of consumer desire, beyond vegans and vegetarians, for more plant-heavy meals. “People are shifting from a meat and potato way of eating toward a more vegetable focused plate,” confirmed Lee.

Said Mark LoParco, director at the University of Montana, “It’s not something that is going to be optional.”