5 things: Aramark announces fall K-12, campus dining plans

In this edition of 5 Things, Food Management highlights five things you may have missed recently about developments affecting onsite dining.

Here’s your list for today:

In separate announcements, Aramark outlined the new initiatives and strategies it will roll out this fall in the K-12 and higher education venues where it operates the dining program. For K-12, plans call for enhanced menus, including 75 new handcrafted menu items such as all-in-one meal bowls featuring global flavors, the expansion of the K-12 version of its Provisions on Demand (POD) Markets that recently won an FM Best Concept Award and the rollout of the Rally Cafe program that leverages school spirit in high schools through customized graphics with school specific images such as mascots, school colors, building/school names and images relevant to the school. The popular innovation features a test kitchen, weekly rotating station, mobile carts and customizable menu items.

For college clients, the company continues to expand on its Healthy For Life program in collaboration with the American Heart Association that involves health inspired menu innovation, student education and engagement programs. Furthermore, more than 80 campuses will feature the True Balance residential or Clean Plate retail allergen stations that avoid all eight major allergens, and more than 40 campuses will incorporate the Local Restaurant Row program through which Aramark partners with local restaurants, food trucks, and area chefs to bring local favorites and global flavors to client locations.

Related:5 tech things: Robots continue to invade campuses

Read more: Aramark Welcomes Students with Safety and Wellness in Mind and Dining Services Welcomes Students Back to Campus with Healthy, Nourishing Choices

Many parents throughout Pueblo's District 60 in Colorado say they are "disheartened" at their student's complaints about the food being served at school and are requesting that they would like to bring their lunches from home. The meal program, which is operated by contract firm Southwest Foodservice Excellence, cites staff shortages at both in its operations and at its food distributors for the problems and promises to correct them.

While an isolated incident, the situation at Pueblo is representative of the difficulties many K-12 meal programs are facing at the start of the 2021-22 school year because of labor shortfalls in their own staffs and among vendors. Of particular concern is that substandard school meal offerings early in the year can turn kids off from participating in the program even if/when improvements are made.

Related:5 things: Study finds additional universal free lunch benefits for K-12

Read more: Students going home hungry, refusing to eat cafeteria meals

It's not just the major corporate dining providers that are positioning themselves for a post-COVID workplace environment through acquisitions and the development of new services. In California's Bay Area, office catering firm garten is making a bet that touchless automated food kiosks will be in demand in offices, hence a deal to acquire Boston-based LeanBox, which operates fresh food vending kiosks for office environments. “Our belief together is that more and more companies will shift away from the one big cafeteria where everybody congregates to more collaborative spaces,” explains garten's founder/CEO, Michael Heinrich.

Read more: This catering CEO thinks he knows what office workers want. He just made his third acquisition

Auburn University debuted a new dining facility, The Edge at Central Dining, at the start of the fall 2021 term, offering literally homegrown food from the university's College of Agriculture ranging from salads with fresh tomatoes and lettuce to fish and burgers. The two-level, $26 million, 48,000-square-foot facility has 800 seats and nine different food stations, including one with allergen-sensitive recipes.

Read more: Auburn’s new ‘The Edge at Central Dining’ features homegrown food from College of Agriculture

Volkswagen has decided to ditch its traditional currywurst sausages for a low-carbon vegan version in its main cafeteria and will also begin serving more vegan and vegetarian dishes, from jackfruit burgers to tofu salads, as part of a plan to remove factory farmed meat entirely from its factory cafeteria menus by 2025. The move was criticized by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who said on a LinkedIn post in German, "Do employees at VW really want this? A vegetarian diet is good, and I even do that in phases. But basically no currywurst? No!"

Read more: 18,000 Vegan Currywurst? Volkswagen Ditches Pork Sausage in Company Cafeteria

Bonus: New, lightened-up French classics make customers say “Ooh la la”

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]