Food for Thought: Doane's Cafeteria

By Callie Cox
Edited Dec. 2, 2010

Doane’s cafeteria serves an estimated 6,000 meals each week to feed the campus population.

According to Vice President of Student Leadership Kim Jacobs the amount of food ordered each week costs 21-25 thousand dollars. This includes food costs for Tiger-Inn and Common Grounds.

Chef manager Mike Bush said he plans the number of meals to serve each week based on the numbers served the previous week. He also plans breaks based on how many were served at the same time the previous year. Bush places food orders for the cafeteria twice a week.

The most popular food among the students in the cafeteria is cereal, said Bush. He said he orders about 88 bags of cereal each week, and each bag weighs about 21 pounds. The cafeteria also serves about 300 pizzas a week. Bush orders the topping ingredients separately and his staff adds them to the pies before baking.

Potatoes are also a popular food item and are served in a variety of styles. For example, when the potato bar is served as the main entre, french fries and mashed potatoes are served as well.

“Some people don’t want the main entre [when it is potato bar], so we offer french fries and mashed potatoes, too,” director of Sodexo food service Tony Hayes said. Hayes also said that is the reason baked potato bar day has so many choices of potatoes.

“When they serve potatoes I usually get them,” freshman Gabrielle Chavers said. “I see a lot of people eating french fries, too.”

French fries are a common side offered. “I see a lot of people eating hamburgers and french fries,” freshman Gentry Doane said.

Students also consume a large amount of salad dressing, and ranch tops the popular list. The cafeteria goes through 25-30 gallons of ranch dressing a week. The lettuce on the salad bar is ordered pre-cut and comes in 51-pound bags. Bush said he orders 56 bags of lettuce a week, for a total of 3,000 pounds of lettuce.

“I love salad, I get a salad every time I eat in the cafeteria,” said Chavers.

Hayes said he doesn’t know the amount of ice cream served in the cafeteria, because Roberts Dairy takes care of the amount of ice cream.

Roberts Dairy is the company Sodexo orders all its dairy products from for the cafeteria, Tiger-Inn and Common Grounds. Other companies Sodexo uses directly include; Pepsi, Pegler-Sysco and Sara Lee.

On a normal day, Bush said they plan on serving around 200-250 meals at breakfast, 300 meals at lunch, 175-200 at Simply to Go for lunch and 400 meals at supper. These numbers apply to meals served in the cafeteria alone.

“I eat in the cafeteria a least a meal a day,” freshman Lauren Zimmerman said. “I love the caf’s breakfast, and always get eggs, bacon or sausage.”

Sodexo runs on a food management system that helps them calculate how much food they need to order, and it also helps decrease the amount of excess food they have left over. This system is on a wWeb site and runs on a four week cycle.

To change things up in the cafeteria, Sodexo provides special meals twice each month. They provide a premium meal, such as steak night, and a theme meal, which often coincides with an upcoming holiday. The cafeteria will also be serving snacks during finals week.