After deciding not to renew its contract with the widely criticized global food provider, Sodexo, after a 19-year partnership, Ithaca College has overhauled its dining services.

Since July, the college  has taken its operations in-house, restructured its meal plan and recruited four local businesses to supply the campus with food products. The changes are aimed at improving food quality, lowering costs, addressing on-campus food insecurity and supporting local businesses.

“Most institutions just go from big provider to big provider and keep changing every 10 years or so,” said David Prunty, executive director of auxiliary services at the college. “Our research and our feedback from our colleges across the country [show] that this is utterly unprecedented to make this kind of change in two-and-a-half months.”

Changing Operations

 Now assuming full dining responsibilities, Ithaca College has made several changes, including:

• Partnering with Cornell University to help facilitate the transition;
• Turning Towers Dining Hall into Towers Marketplace, a retail dining space;
• Reducing dining hall hours and removing late-night dining from Terrace Dining Hall;
• Locally sourcing from nearby businesses, including Gimme! Coffee, Ithaca Bakery, Ithaca Coffee Company and Purity Ice Cream; and
• Introducing new options in IC Square such as Chick-n-Bap, a Binghamton-based Korean-inspired street food provider.

Though still early,  dining services has received both positive and negative feedback. Prunty said most of the complaints pertain to dining hall hour changes and the long lines, especially in the Campus Center Dining Hall, while praise has surrounded the improved food quality.

Sofia DiGiandomenico, a senior who works in Ithaca Bakery and has worked in IC Square since her first year at the college, echoed a similar sentiment.

“So many people are coming. The line’s always out the door,” she said. “I definitely think that we’re a little bit understaffed…but as far as the food goes and all the products and everything, I definitely think that it’s a lot better.”

Cutting Student Expenses

The college’s new meal plans are less expensive than they were with Sodexo, now offering two options that grant more Bomber Bucks than last year.

Students living in resident housing are required to have an unlimited meal plan plus $230 Bomber Bucks, while students living off campus or in on-campus apartments can choose the standard unlimited meal plan or a five-meal plan plus $600 Bomber Bucks.

Sophomore Shannon Wolfe said the amended meal plan improves the social aspect of on-campus dining. Previously, students were restricted from entering the dining hall if they reached their weekly swipe limit.

However, despite the reduced costs, not all dining locations accept meal swipes, which can be challenging for students when retail dining is the only option after the dining halls close.

“Once a week, I eat pretzels, cheese sticks, apples and other little things that I can keep in my room as my dinner because of my hectic schedule between practice, lift and staff meetings,” Wolfe said. “I don’t want to be buying retail dining food in [places like] Towers that frequently if I don’t have to.”

Thinking Local

In March 2019, the college distributed a campus-wide survey to understand the food providers people were interested in seeing on campus. Popular responses included large corporations like Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, but Prunty said this mindset strays from the college’s goals.

“Our mission was if we’re going to do this and bring in companies to help provide services to campus, they should be local to recommit and to reinforce our institutional ties to the Ithaca [and] Tompkins County region,” he said.

In addition to offering the campus community members some of their favorite local eats, the new partnerships are designed to be mutually beneficial.

“As retail businesses, we rely heavily, obviously, on foot traffic, and it’s very easy for the students to kind of stay up on the hill up there,” said Aaron Rovitz, Marketing Director at Ithaca Coffee Company. “So, getting them down and feeding into the local businesses, the local economy—we all benefit [from] that.”

Gregar Brous, owner of Ithaca Bakery and an IC alumnus, also emphasized the importance of community for the college’s new dining program.

“The word ‘Ithaca’ is in the [college’s] name, so I think that they should be very, very proud of that,” he said. “I’ve always been very proud that I went to school here and that they were able to…connect to the community. I think this is another way to make an even bigger step to emphasizing the value of that.”