Dining's role on campus

Dining halls are quickly falling out of style. At schools across the country, campus dining is in the latter stages of a seismic shift from the "one size fits all" approach to a more customer-focused way of keeping students fed.

Meal plans with set numbers of all-you-can-eat meals are being replaced by a la carte plans with declining balances. Retail outlets with convenient hours are pulling students away from traditional dining halls due in large part to their brand names, quality and variety.

The bottom line is that retail is the future of dining. Students are becoming more sophisticated in their tastes and more demanding about where, when and what they want to eat. And while Penn -- and to a large extent Aramark, the Philadelphia-based food services firm under contract with the University -- has made progress in this area, there is a lot of room for improvement.

In November, meal plan enrollment at Penn declined 4 percent overall, while interest in Dining Dollars increased 139 percent, according to Kate Moran, a spokeswoman for Aramark.

Declining-balance systems like Dining Dollars make the most sense for students as they provide the greatest flexibility. Unfortunately, Penn is still clinging to the antiquated all-you-can-eat meal system that requires a certain number of meals on every plan.

It's time for that requirement to go by the wayside.

If Penn wants to make its meal plans attractive -- i.e. sell them to students other than freshmen who have no choice but to buy them -- the University should adopt a free-market retail system for all dining halls. Instead of paying for a block of meals, students should be able to pay for just what they want.

This is the way things work currently in Houston Market, and it seems to be relatively successful. Other schools, such as Cornell, have created plans that consist solely of declining-balance accounts. In both cases, food quality -- a major complaint in Penn's cafeterias at the moment -- is higher.

Both students and Aramark alike would benefit from a dramatic cut in the waste that currently exists in the system. Students now are throwing money away with all of the meals that go unused, and Aramark throws out tons of uneaten food. A market-based approach would allow Aramark, like any other restaurant, to plan and prepare the exact amount of food needed.

For many years it seems as though retail and dining halls were in competition with each other. They don't need to be; rather, they should work together.

Triangle Diner, Subway, Chick-fil-A and others under the guise of "Real Food @ Penn" have drawn students away from the traditional dining halls because of the choices and quality they offer. You pay $6 for a sandwich, and you know what you are getting.

Dining halls could operate just as well under this business model, so long as the quality of the food is comparable to the price.

This would be a major change in policy for Penn Dining, but it is one that could bring upperclassmen back into the fold.

The Undergraduate Assembly this week made a number of reasonable dining proposals that could be implemented immediately, such as extending dining hall hours. This is worth pursuing, since the current hours offered are out of touch with the schedules of most students.

Additionally, the UA suggested expanding variety and adding vegetarian, vegan and organic selections. What better way to analyze the demand for these new foods than with a retail-based system for buying meals? That way, Aramark could say with precision what students want to eat, and then deliver.

It's the future of dining, and Penn should working on it today.

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