Grab-and-go food options eliminate on-campus dining jobs

Sept. 12—Dining Services’ job positions were eliminated after the university began outsourcing for packaged food, but no one was laid off to accommodate the change.

Jon Lewis, director of Dining Services, said instead of Ball State staff packaging items on campus, they now get grab-and-go items prepackaged from Food Evolution, a food company near Chicago.

“We hire hundreds of students new every year,” he said. “We hire 50-60 new part time employees every year. We simply didn’t fill those positions. So we didn’t lay anybody off, we just eliminated the position and nobody lost their job. Some were reassigned to other areas, which was fine with them because they had a job.”