Food Network Committee Meeting November 2, 2011

Transcription

1 Food Network Committee Meeting November 2, 2011 In Attendance: Glenn Edwards (Chestnut), Jaco Lokker (Chestnut), Carrie Laughlin (Meal Plan Office), Aron Mohr (Hart House), Sammy Salhia (Sammy s), Tiffany Wang (Aramark), Peter Smith (UTSC), Peter Sudenis (University College), Colleen (Aramark) Agenda Items: a. On Tap i. The ban on bottled water is now in effect on all three campuses. This campaign is known as On Tap, and is now in its second stage: to add new/refresh existing infrastructure and, and to educate customers about where to find public water. As you know, this is a University wide initiative and many departments are involved in this project. ii. In the coming weeks, Sarah will go around and put up a small 4x6 sign at your locations pointing people to the nearest water fountain. We are also creating a map that will look similar to the new food map, and have all the fountains marked on it. iii. Some negative comments received from upset customers who cannot find water % of the people surveyed are in support of this campaign, and are happy with the results. 2. Food Services is installing water stations in the high traffic locations. iv. Feedback from UTSC: the University should have added fountains before banning bottled water. v. Providers who do not have fountains in/near their locations should try to put out a cooler or a jug. Catering operations at UC, Chestnut and Hart House are also offering jugs of water instead of plastic bottles. vi. Sammy s is giving out tap water and plastic cups. Will work with Hart House to replace the cups for compostable cups. Some locations are charging 25 cents for the cup. We should encourage people to bring a reusable bottle. 1. We will be selling reusable bottles (same ones that the bookstore sells). They will be sold to you at cost, and you can sell them at the higher standard price. Some of these bottles will also be placed in vending machines. And some of these may be filled with chilled water, ready to be purchased. vii. If your building is one where there are no fountains, you will have to lobby your building for a new fountain.

2 b. Lug a Mug i. The Lug a Mug cups are ready to be shipped to you. They are the same designs as last year, with the same coupons. One additional coupon (Starbucks AC) is being added. Sarah will send the coupons to everyone for approval. c. Cooking for a Cause i. Hart House is acting as consultant for Cooking for a Cause. Main event will take place on February 15 (tentative). ii. Goal of website: to engage food security students. Students and others can upload recipes. Top recipes will compete in the main event. Hart House is looking for judges for this competition. It is a low time commitment. (Jaco has volunteered to be a judge) d. Brownie Competition i. Second annual We Want Your Brownie competition is now open. We are accepting recipes from students, staff, faculty, even chefs on campus. The top brownies will be open to a public vote on December 1, 2011 at Sid s Café. ii. During exams, the winning brownie will be sold across campus. iii. Last year, the brownie was very popular, specially at UC. We encourage all providers to take part in this. e. New Website i. Sarah is working on a new Food Services website. It will be more interactive, and more intuitive. There will be a section for providers where you can submit your events to be promoted across campus. ii. There is a new food map: If you click on food, our layer shows up. Sarah will be adding hours of operation to this in the coming weeks. f. Field to Fork 2011 i. To those who participated, thank you! ii. Feedback: It was a bigger success than last year. iii. Chestnut recovered costs. Hoping the other vendors also recovered costs. iv. Next year s Field to Fork will also coincide with the farmers market. g. Ocean Wise i. Chestnut is complying with Ocean Wise, as is UC. They are going through the formal process of becoming certified. ii. Hart House is also in the process.

3 iii. Checking providers and origins is taking time. UC and Chestnut have already gone through this process with GFS, and would be happy to share their information in order to speed up the certification process. Please contact Jaco if you wish to discuss. h. Free Range Eggs i. We have been approached by a group lobbying for free range eggs on campus. They tend to take an aggressive approach, and will most likely be contacting you soon. They have already contacted Chestnut, Aramark and UC, and have asked to be invited to the Food Network. ii. Aramark has committed to converting 20% of their shell eggs to free range. Chestnut has converted 53% of their shell eggs to free range (all brown eggs in front of house, since it is easier to separate white and brown eggs). i. Nutrition Week i. Feedback on Nutrition Week: The classes were well received as usual, though the attendance was lower than previous years. Thank you to New College and Chestnut for donating the time and resources to host these classes. ii. The beef stew was extremely popular. Sold out at most locations every day. iii. For next year, instead of offering the same dish every day, it would be better to change the dishes. So beef stew on Monday and Tuesday, and something else on Wednesday and Thursday. iv. For next year, we need a vegetarian option j. Hours of Operation i. Sarah will be loading the hours of operation onto the food map. These will be revised at the start of each semester, so please make sure you locations are operating during the hours stated. Sarah will send out a call for hours next week. k. Wings Contest i. New College hosts a wings contest. Tentative date for next one: January 24, Theme: Who can eat the spiciest wings? ii. Chestnut also hosts a wings contest every year. The sous chefs and Jaco compete to prepare the best wings, and the public votes. iii. Jaco s proposal: different chefs from campus compete to create the best wings recipe, and do a public tasting and vote on Willcocks. So a contest between locations. iv. New College suggests doing a contest where different chefs travel to other locations for contests or theme nights. Chestnut,

4 Sammy s, New College and University College are all interested in this. New College will follow up in the coming weeks. l. Meal Plans Sales, Marketing, Troubleshooting i. Meal Plan sales are almost $500,000 as of this month. Out of the total sales, we sold 362 Flexible Plans, 72 St. George Campus Dining Plans, and 120 New College Plans. We have surpassed last year s annual sales, in three months alone. Some factors contributing to these sales. 1. Every student received a food map and a meal plan brochure. 2. The satellite locations were selling meal plans for 8 hours a day, with five employees at each location, for 3 weeks. Since the meal plan sales team was working more hours, we were able to connect with more students on campus, at different times. 3. The satellite locations were also more spread out and we reached a larger audience. 60% of our sales were online, though many of them picked up a brochure at a satellite location. Majority of the physical sales took place at Robarts. Next year, we will replace the station at MSB with Sanford Fleming. We will also have a physical meal plan office on campus next year, where students can pay cash or go to for troubleshooting. 4. More locations are taking part in the meal plan. 40 locations participating means that more people are able to purchase a meal plan. All locations have seen an increase in sales this semester. 5. We have been able to reach more people through mailing lists, and dean s mailing lists, as well as our social media. ii. Our next project is to retain the meal plan customers who have plans expiring this semester. We are considering giving $100 extra flexible dollars from our marketing budget. If you are interested in contributing, please contact Jaco. 1. We will schedule a marketing meeting next week, and all are invited to attend. iii. Infrastructure update: 1. Second Cup Pharmacy is still not up. 2. Aramark is being rewired so that they are hardwired to the University backbone. iv. UC has experienced two outages in the past month, one short and one long. The message on the screen says working. 1. Sarah will create a form on our website that you can fill out if you have an outage.

5 v. If it shows that there is not enough money, the system will access the enrichment (complimentary) dollars that are attached to their plan. If the customer has run out of complimentary dollars, the sale will get declined. vi. If you are offline, you should not accept the meal plans because you will not be able to tell if they have enough money in their plan or not. Call Jaco immediately if you are offline. It may be just your location, or all locations. vii. Communication with the students is important. If they have any problems with their card, or have questions, please ask them to contact the meal plan office Phone: viii. Meal Plan Newsletter: We send out a weekly newsletter to the students, and highlight the coupons valid for that week, specials and promotions at different locations, reminders for meal plan renewals, etc. 1. Our goal is to offer extra promotions to people with meal plans, to encourage them to continue using their meal plan, and to encourage others to sign up for a meal plan. 2. We need everyone s cooperation with the promotions. Each week, a different location can offer a different promotion. For example, first 10 people with a meal plan who purchase a coffee on Monday will receive a free muffin. It has to be something significant enough to make it worthwhile for them to come to your location. Everyone is contributing to keeping this campaign ongoing. Food Services has put in around $100,000 to dste for marketing, printing, and complimentary flexible dollars. Please contact Jaco or Sarah to discuss options for promotions. ix. The cheques you received were for September. If you need a detailed statement, let Jaco know and he can get you a detailed report. 1. Monthly statements can be printed on request, so please let Jaco know if you need one. m. UTSC Update i. UTSC is also considering going to a one card system. They have hired a student to look into a budget for this, who may contact any of us for input. At UTSC, Retail and Conference Services will handle the meal plans, not Food and Beverage. ii. La Prep is opening at the new Instructional Centre.

6 iii. Hero Burger, KFC and Taco Bell are coming next year. So at the moment, UTSC is short 4 lcoations. iv. The UTSC Farmers Market is moving indoors on a trial basis. It will operate once a month in a student space. n. $5 Meal Deals i. Second half of November, and April. In addition to Robarts, MSB, Sid s Café, Veda, and UC, Sammys has expressed interest in joining in February. o. BlogTO i. Some of our locations were featured on BlogTO: drink_in_and_around_uoft/. Overall, it is a very positive review. ii. Sammys was also featured in the En Route magazine on WestJet. NOTE: The next meeting is scheduled for January 11, The location and the agenda are flexible. Please contact Sarah if you wish to host, or if you have an item to add on the agenda.