Food services changes for the coming year
Goodbye, Aramark; hello U of M Food Services
CHELSE MCKEE, STAFF
Photo by Eryn Thorey MacKenzie.
In April 2007, with promises of healthier food, Aramark, the food services provider for the University of Manitoba, signed a new seven-year contract. However, students living in residence will have to wait a little longer before seeing the new changes.
The Pembina Hall renovations were scheduled to be completed for Sept. 1 but due to issues with asbestos and welders, the completion has been delayed another week with a new completion date of Sept. 7.
The renovations are part of a new organization for food services on campus. Aramark will now be referred to as University of Manitoba Food Services, said new general manager Daryl Lucyk.
According to Lucyk, Winnipeg has a shortage of available welders, and additional workers could not be flown in due to a union agreement.
For students living in residence, there will be food service buffets offered until the construction is complete.
However, the new Starbucks being built in Elizabeth Dafoe Library will be completed on time with the completion date, being at the latest, Sept. 5.
The new Tim Hortons promised for the Frank Kennedy Centre will be unexpectedly and extremely delayed due to the inclusion of ovens in the franchise. Food services have to fire- rate the entire room before work can be done.
The coffee shop was scheduled to be built by the east doors, in the place of the former Java Stop. Although there is no specified completion date, the new Tim Hortons is expected to be completed in fall of this year.
“[It’s] no fault of anyone. No one anticipated that,” Lucyk said.
As for Pembina Hall, once it is in full swing, students will be catered to a multitude of various new choices. Some to mention are a salad bar, a carving station and an omelet bar.
Another new set of changes to the menu at Pembina Hall is the inclusion of alternative options, like vegetarian/vegan options and halal chicken strips. There are currently no plans to introduce kosher options into the meal plan because there have not been enough requests from students for that option.
In addition, there will be an executive chef working with food services and also more fresh food for the upcoming year.
“A lot of the food comes through the door in the morning” Lucyk said about the morning deliveries that students can expect in the coming year.
However, some things with U of M Food Services will stay the same. Students will still be unable to roll over their unused meals into the succeeding months, a new feature of U of M food services brought in with the 2006 seven-month extension of Aramark's contract before the current agreement was signed.
Lucyk compared the student’s meals to minutes on a cell phone.
If “you don’t use them by the end of the month, you don’t use them.”
Due to the issues of last year, involving conflicts between Aramark and student groups like icePIRG and UMSPAR over the quality and healthiness of residence food, Lucyk creates a preemptive open-door policy.
“We’re not a big, bad demon coming in here. We’re going to do whatever we can reasonably. The communication’s there. There’s no door shut.”
Lucyk went on to explain that the relationship between Aramark and the students is a two-way street, where both parties have to be reasonable and realistic in their requests.
Matt Soprovich, a student food service advocate, expressed a hopeful but wary attitude towards the changes with U of M Food Services. “It looks like there’s going to be quite an improvement. There proposition was to basically [gut] the whole place. That in itself shows that they’re putting in a lot more effort than they have before. [I’m] cautiously optimistic.”
Although U of M Food Services currently own franchises on campus, like Tim Hortons and Robin’s Donuts, they have no plans at this point to invest in any more after the completion of the new Starbucks and Tim Hortons, according to Lucyk.
When asked about how U of M Food Services plans to keep up the green efforts of other food service providers, like recyclable takeout containers, Lucyk said that U of M Food Services already has a number of green environment packaging available, and plans to have a complete selection by the end of fall of this year.
“That whole control issue is important,” Lucyk said referring to controlling excessive napkin usage by students as well as residents taking more utensils than they need, like “12 forks for macaroni.”
“I’m a big supporter of going green,” Lucyk stated, “[but] there’s an associated cost.”
Lucyk has recently taken over the general manager for University of Manitoba Food Services on campus after former manager Brent Gilchrist was transferred in June. Gilchris no longer works for the U of M.
Lucyk has been with Aramark, an international food services provider, for six years and has worked in hotel and restaurants, as well as health care. Just this past summer, Lucyk lived in the Arthur V. Mauro residence. He spoke with the students about Pembina Hall and called them his “focus group.”
Lucyk is proud of the food service renovations on campus.
“We’ve accomplished so much this summer.”
For students in residence who eat at Pembina Hall, menus will be rotating on a four-week basis, as well as being available online.
