Expo Gives Insight to Food Trends

Sodexo event tests college students’ tastes.

Sodexo Food Expo, Seattle Pacific University

“Each semester we go to a different university and invite chefs from all over the country to come in and prepare more than 70 recipes for students to try,” Seng said. “It’s a great way for the students to let us know what they like best. Then we feature those menu items the following semester on our campus dining menus across the country. So it’s a great way for us to be on trend, and the students have a great day tasting everything.”

The expo was set up like a grocery store tasting, only on a gargantuan scale, according to Seng.

“We had about 22 different stations set up with a different group of chefs working each one,” Seng said. “Each station had at least two and sometimes up to five or six different items. The students just went around at their leisure and tried whatever they wanted and then they marked off what they thought of that particular menu item on a ballot, which we then tabulated by the end of the day. The recipes came from Sodexo chefs and then we worked with our vendor partners on the different products that would go into the recipes. There were more than 30 chefs present at the expo.”

Sodexo Food Expo, Seattle Pacific University

 “It’s a really great way to show our commitment to customer insight—because how much more direct can you get?” said Monica Zimmer, director of public relations for Sodexo. “It’s not just research from somewhere. We prepared it for them, they tasted it and they told us what they liked. It’s really fun, but it’s really a commitment to customer satisfaction.”

To drive student participation, Seng said she worked with students to do some marketing on Facebook. She also created posters and table tents so they could get as many students as possible at the expo.

“A normal Friday at lunch was about 900, and we had 1,500 students come in during the three-hour period,” Seng said. “We really dramatically increased participation. I even heard students talking about getting out of class so they could come to the tasting.”