Students bite off more than they can chew

Your eyes may be bigger than your stomach when you enter VCU’s dining facility Shafer Court for breakfast, lunch or dinner. But who can resist piling food on your plate when you have food choices ranging from lobster, beef ribs and sushi.
On the second floor of Shafer, also called Market 810, students, guests, faculty and staff can choose as much food as they want. Because of this option, 1,100 pounds of food is thrown away weekly.
“Take all you want, eat all you take,” is a new motto issued by VCU Dining Services to help reduce the amount of food wasted in Market 810. Pam Neff, resident manager of ARAMARK, says the motto is like a friendly reminder.
“Guests may take all they want but we simply ask not to waste food,” said Neff.
ARAMARK is the food supplier for VCU. Each day VCU receives a new shipment of food that feeds over 5,000 students daily. ARAMARK also serves over 400 academic institutes including Old Dominion University and The College of William and Mary.
An ARAMARK employee and Shafer manager who wished to remain anonymous says he has worked at three other universities but the amount of food wasted at VCU is enormous.
“The kids at this university waste so much food it is unbelievable,” said the anonymous source. However, Neff says the budget for food is in line with other schools.

One reason students spend so much time in Shafer is because of its buffet-style food service. The facility is an award winning design set up as a marketplace with “mini-restaurants.”
Any guest can start his or her meal with a salad, get a main course, and top it off with dessert on any given day in Shafer. There is no limit.
“It all looks so good so you have to take a little bit of everything,” said the ARAMARK employee.
Jobarie Townsend, a VCU sophomore, agrees with the ARAMARK employee. Townsend justifies his amount of consuming food because of the buffet style option. “It’s commonly a tradition at a buffet style place that no one cares to eat all their food,” said Townsend.
Some students try to obey the Shafer motto and throw away as little as possible. Ja’Nel Edens, a VCU freshman, says the fancy food presentations don’t tempt her take more than she can eat.
“Most of the time I do eat all my food,” says Edens. “I try to take as much food that I am going to eat.”
Neff says another reason that food is thrown away on such a large scale is because students tend to take all the food they want at one time to reduce excessive walking in the crowded facility.
“Students need to do a better job making selections instead of taking everything all at once,” said Neff. “Students tend to fill up on food from the servers and then by the time they can get to all the food on their tray, it is cold.”
One option to reduce the waste is to eliminate buffet style serving and allow employees to portion the meal for each customer. Market 810 already practices this option on a small scale under their Upper Cuts Program. This program allows students to swipe extra for finer choices of food such as crab legs and lamb kabobs. This upper class cuisine is hand served by the chef. However Market 810 would not be able to hand feed each customer considering the large number of people it serves daily.
Neff says that she believes that guests prefer to serve themselves the amount that they desire. Students do not like the idea of having their meals that they pay anywhere from $1,600 to $185 a semester rationed for them.
“I wouldn’t like that [rationed food] because we are already use to getting our own food,” said Edens.
The ARAMARK employee says that it would not be economical or time wise to feed each customer individually.
Currently ARAMARK and VCU do not donate any foods that were not used in Market 810 to homeless shelters in the Richmond area.
Although large amounts of food is wasted, students are paying the price, literally.
“They pay for it, so they are entitled,” said the ARAMARK employee.