Every week, The Talon interviews a member of the Oklahoma Christian University community, a “Newsmaker,” to answer questions about their role on campus.
On September 3, The Talon interviewed Kurt Hermanson, the owner/operator of Udining.
What is your experience with working with our Christian university? How does it differ (if at all) from working with other organizations?
“So I’ve been here since ‘82, but I left for five years and I went to another Christian institution, Oral Roberts, for a year and Southern Nazarene for four years, and then I came back to Oklahoma Christian. Prior to that, when I was in college, I worked at Texas Lutheran College down in Seguin, Texas,” he said. “I started out in the dish room, worked my way up to a server, and then worked my way up to a student manager. And then my senior year, I was the assistant manager, and then when I graduated, the company I worked for asked me to come to Oklahoma,” said Hermanson. “So I became a manager here, and at that time there was myself and then the director that was working here, and I worked for him for three years, and then became the boss. Back to your question, when I started this company, I started it on Christian values and Christian morals, and the reason I left the company that I worked for for 25 years was because there was a lot of shady stuff going on. My last role at the company I worked for was area manager, so I was over five schools, and [my old company was] doing some things that I wasn’t comfortable doing. They were lying to clients. They were making stuff up, and I felt really bad. So I decided that I was going to leave the company. Took my money out of my 401k to start Udining. This was in 2009, and then I worked with Oklahoma Christian to get the contract here, and so I got the five year contract here, and then the rest is history. And I said I work with Christian values, and so we also do the lunch program at OCA here in Edmond. We deliver those lunches every day. Then we also do K-12 at Crossings Christian, which is a very large school, and we do about 600 meals there, and then we just recently acquired the catering contract for Quail Springs Baptist Church,” Hermanson said. “My vision was to work with Christian institutions, because that’s where I felt comfortable. Because honesty and integrity were very important to me. With Oklahoma Christian, it’s been a blessing. It’s my home, and we have open dialogue with the clients here, and I don’t pull any punches. We don’t lie to each other. We shoot straight. If I need help, they help. If they need help, I help them. We do a lot of gifting to the university, and so we don’t make as much money as the big company did when they were here because we give a lot of it away, and so and I take very good care of my employees, which is another thing I wanted to do because they didn’t take care of their employees.”
How does UDining ensure food safety and still create quality for all students with allergens?
“As far as the special diets go, you know, years ago we had very few allergies, and now we have a lot. So that’s kind of how we came up with Nourish. Originally, Nourish was designed to be a healthy line, but there were so many celiacs and so many gluten frees and dairy frees and peanut frees and I mean it was just everybody. So now any gluten-free eater, what not celiacs necessarily, but any gluten-free eater can eat on that line and feel safe. The ones that are celiacs, that get sick from cross-contamination, we prepare special meals for them. They work with Chef Ginger, and so we actually put the plates in the warmer with their name on it, so we don’t get them confused. They’re prepared on a table that’s 100% gluten-free. All of our gluten-free products are on a separate shelf, not even in our storeroom. They’re back in a hallway back by my office, and so all that stuff is totally kept separate. And the knives and everything that we use, we have one person that does all the gluten-free celiac meals or special diets, and she’s super careful. And so that’s how we do it. A lot of people don’t know that we do that. Parents are always really excited when they bring their kids here to do the tours and whatnot. And so we find out when they first get here, and then by the time they come in for lunch, we’ve got them a meal. It is pretty amazing because back in the day they would just have to go off the meal plan to cook their own food,” he said. “I’d say that probably 80% of the ones that we get at the beginning of semester are able to eat at Nourish. And if you look at our menu boards, you can see what has gluten, what has dairy, and all that. I mean, she spends so much time doing those menu boards and stuff. So yeah, I mean, I’d say 80% of them are fine in the branch with just the way we have it.”
What would be one thing that sets apart a great cafeteria from an average cafeteria?
“A great team. So we’ve, over the years, compiled a great team. My general manager is fantastic, and Ginger is, bar none, the best chef that I’ve ever worked with in institutional feeding. Our goal was to put out restaurant quality food in an institution, a college, which is not easy to do. If you’ve been to other schools and seen the products that they put out, in similar size institutions, some of the bigger schools may have some similar situations, but schools the size of Oklahoma Christian, you will not find a better product than what we do here. Ginger changes our menus and she tries new things and she gives you guys chances to try new things, and I just love that. I give her free reign, pretty much, on menus and food, and she sources food. The chef, the general manager, the management team, and my staff, I lead by example, but I give my people space to do their thing, and then I critique them if there’s something that needs to be critiqued,” he said. “So, I’ve got a little fact for you. From freshman to senior, how many meals do you think that you guys will eat in the branch? There’s 210 feeding days in a year, we’re open 210 days for you guys. 4,800 meals is a good average of how many meals you’ll eat. That’s only assuming you eat 10 of your 15 meals, freshman and sophomore year. Yeah. And then assuming you eat four or five meals a week as a junior and senior. So you’ll see us more than you’ll see anybody else on campus. So it’s our job to smile when you come in, whether it’s at the front, whether it’s on the serving line. You know, during chapel rush, it’s kind of hard because we’re just jamming, but we have an important role, and we know that. We don’t take it for granted.”
How does UDining decide when a new meal hits the cafeteria? What do you do to ensure variety?
“So we have customer-driven menus. So you guys drive the menus. If you’re not eating something, you probably won’t see it again, or at least for a long time. We also look at trends. Ginger’s really good at looking at what’s hot and what’s not. But our menus are driven by you guys all the way. I mean, the old company I worked for, we had a four-week menu cycle, and every four weeks you had the same thing,” he said. “We had chicken tender Mondays, and every Monday we had chicken tenders, no matter what else we had with it. But now we look at what you guys are eating. We see what we can buy at a reasonable price to be able to maximize the best product for you guys. So we source our meat from Oklahoma Meat company, Ben E. Keith, and sometimes we use U.S. Food Service if we can’t find it from the other sources. So she spends probably two weeks before the beginning of the semester, just researching and trying to find things that you guys would like, and if you don’t like them, then she doesn’t do it again, you know. But we’re never taking Orange Chicken away, and you know we’re not taking away the hamburgers. The pasta toss continues to be the hottest thing in there, which is so weird because three years ago, I mean, people were not going to the pasta toss at lunch. I mean, I had one person there, and they’d be standing there twirling their thumbs. Then we had Jordan last year that worked for us, and I mean, I’m not sure if he was a lot of the reason because of his personality, but man, I mean, that place is just hopping all the time. So yeah, I mean, trends and what you guys like is how we drive our menus.”
How do you see God working through your career and the people you have been able to serve?
“You know, I’ve thought about that a lot because I felt like I was chosen to be here. Because of the transfer from the old manager when I was asked to come to Oklahoma Christian, and it was a whole different environment. Back then, we had a lot more students. We had 1600 meal plans, which was huge back then, and they were almost all big meal plans. But I feel like God led me here. Then when I left, He gave me the opportunity to come back and be where I belong. But I mean, I feel like my faith has led me and kept me here, and this is where I’m going to retire. So I mean, I’m just blessed that they want to keep me here.”
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