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Students waste over 400lbs of food per day at The Branch

  • Oklahoma Christian University students are wasting approximately 400 pounds of food every day in the new cafeteria, according to UDining

UDining owner Kurt Hermanson said the company has unquestionably lost money due to the amount of food wasted by Oklahoma Christian students. Hermanson noticed the increase in food waste as soon as the new cafeteria opened for business.

“I would go back to help in the dish room, and I started seeing all this food coming back,” Hermanson said. “It was ridiculous how much was coming back. I just kept monitoring it. I weighed the waste on the 16th or 17th of January, and then the following week I went back and weighed the food. That’s when I thought we had a pretty good problem. By the third week, it was a little bit better.”

If the trend continues, students may have to pay increased meal plan costs in the future. While Hermanson said it will not feel like a lot, a few extra dollars a week will help UDining to manage their operation better to cover costs. 

“I think some people just feel like they’ve paid for it and they can get whatever they want to,” Hermanson said. “What they don’t realize is if they continue to waste food like that and we continue to lose money, then we have to raise our rates for next year. And when we raise our rates that falls right back on the students.”

Though not every student wastes their food, Hermanson said it only takes a few students to affect the student population.

“The sad thing is there’s only a small percentage of students that do that,” Hermanson said. “Most of the trays that come back, they ate literally everything. It’s just a small percentage of people, and what happens is that small percentage impacts the entire student body in the long run because the costs go up for everybody not just for those 100 students.”

UDining employee Mike Payne attributes the high amount of waste to the novelty of the new cafeteria.

“It was all new, and the students wanted to try anything,” Payne said. “And of course, there were no limitations on how many plates you can take so they were going in and taking a little bit of everything, but you can only eat so much. Everybody uses the expression, ‘My eyes are bigger than my stomach. It looked good; I wanted to try it; I just couldn’t eat it all.’” 

Additionally, Payne said the UDining team has made adjustments concerning portion sizes. Initially, the staff filled bowls and plates to their fullest capacity, however, this is no longer the case. 

“We are learning about portion size,” Payne said. “We don’t like telling people not to take something; that’s not what we’re here for. But once in a while if we have something that is definitive sizes like chicken breasts, if someone asks for two or three we may say, ‘Can I give you this one and if you want more you can come back,’ to see if the eyes are bigger than their stomach.”

Payne said initially the food waste was a large problem, and it is already getting better. However, he said UDining and Oklahoma Christian’s student population still have a long way to go to fix the issue. 

“One thing I would suggest is to get a plate of food and then come back if you want something more,” Payne said. “It might be effective to eat one plate at a time, and you can come back in as much as you want. That way you’re probably not going to waste as much, and the food that you get is going to be hotter.”

Payne still has faith in the Oklahoma Christian community and urges students to think smart and pay attention to how much food they really think they are going to eat.

“I can’t judge that on anybody, and I wouldn’t even try,” Payne said. “If we can just work together, us on our portion control and students being a little more aware, we’ll make it work. One thing about UDining is I’ve been here 11 years, and when we’re confronted with a problem it may take a little time, but we’ll make it work.”

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