5 things: USDA announces new Food & Nutrition Services undersecretary

Each Friday Food Management compiles a list that highlights five things you probably missed in the onsite foodservice news that week and why you should care about them.

Here’s your list for the week of January 18:

The USDA has announced that nutrition policy expert Stacy Dean has been named Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services (FNCS). She currently serves as vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and directed its food assistance team, which publishes frequent reports on how federal nutrition programs affect families and communities and develops policies to improve them. Previously, she served as a budget analyst at the Office of Management and Budget, where she worked on policy development, regulatory and legislative review, and budgetary process and execution for a variety of income support programs.

Read more: U.S. Department of Agriculture Announces Three Deputy Under Secretaries in the Areas of Nutrition, Rural Development and Marketing and Regulatory Programs

Harvard Law School is terminating its contract with Restaurant Associates (RA) and transitioning management of its food services to Harvard University Dining Services, meaning its 50-person staff will become university employees and not face the layoff of contract workers previously announced by Harvard. Meanwhile, Harvard Medical School also announced that it would not pursue layoffs of 16 contracted dining workers, though they remain RA employees.

Related:5 coronavirus things: UNC Chapel Hill making cuts following dining services losses due to COVID

Read more: Harvard Medical School, Law School To Maintain Jobs and Pay for Contracted Dining Workers

A food waste study at a private school in Missouri by an international team of researchers has led to the conclusion that American school cafeterias waste more food than those in other developed countries. The study, conducted during the 2018-2019 academic year, found plate waste ranging from 27% to 53% of the food served compared to 23% in Sweden, between 20% and 29% in Italy and 30% in Spain based on similar studies in those countries, according to researcher Christine Costello, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Read more: U.S. school cafeterias waste more food than those in other developed countries

Related:5 coronavirus things: Florida school districts see $370 million fiscal hole in meal programs

Aramark has temporarily laid off 433 employees and permanently laid off seven others at East Carolina University (ECU), and also laid off 183 employees at Western Washington University (WWU). The COVID pandemic and its impact on on-campus student populations was cited as the reason in both cases as WWU has announced that its spring and summer classes will be held mostly online while ECU has just 1,900 students living on campus, leading to keeping only one of the two main dining halls open this semester

Read more: COVID-19: Aramark lays off 440 workers at ECU dining halls and Western Washington University contractor to lay off 183 campus workers

British contract catering firm Compass Group PLC, parent of Compass Group North America, the largest contract management company in the U.S. per the FM Top 50, is also the eighth largest employer in the world with a worldwide staff of around 596,400, according to this listing. Walmart heads the list with some 2.2 million employees.

Read more: These Are the 10 Largest Employers in the World

Bonus: Guckenheimer experiments with in-home drop-offs

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]