The Daily Tar Heel
URL: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2012/02/meal_plan
Current Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 11:49:58 -0400
Meal plan waste at UNC
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Sophomore Erica Roberson thought she had finally found the right meal plan.
But at the end of the fall semester, she was surprised to find more than a quarter of her 160 meals had gone unused.
Roberson is a part of a larger trend. At UNC-CH, 25 percent of all meals bought through campus dining plans are wasted each semester, a model that finds mixed comparisons at other UNC-system schools.
“There should be some kind of block plan, maybe even lower than 120 meals, because the lowest they have is the commuter plan with 50 meals, which is too little,” Roberson said.
Money from wasted meals subsidizes Carolina Dining Services’ prices and pay for overhead expenses and staff, said Scott Myers, director of dining and vending.
Carolina Dining Services, which offers meal plan options to on-campus and commuter students, sells about 6,000 meal plans each fall.
The large percentage of unused meals can be attributed to students buying meal plans that don’t match their lifestyles, Myers said.
Money from unused meals also help pay for debt owed by Carolina Dining Services, which currently has $30 million in outstanding debt charges due to facility upkeep and renovations at Lenoir and Rams Head dining halls.
If students were to eat every meal they purchased, meal plan prices would be higher, Myers said.
“For a plan that includes 14 meals per week, we charge $6.67 (per meal),” he said. “You would never see an all-you-can-eat meal for $6.67 anywhere else.”
But some students think there should be a more economical option.
“Sometimes when I’m not really hungry, I’ll go to the dining hall and (wonder) if it is really worth the $10 or $7, depending on the time, when I just feel like eating a salad,” freshman Terri Frasca said.
Appalachian State University and Western Carolina University boast much lower percentages of unused meals: 0.75 percent and 0.007 percent, respectively.
Appalachian State, with dining halls that operate on an a-la-carte system, has the most economical meal plans of UNC-system schools, said its director of food services Art Kessler.
“We promote that they go to the on-campus convenience store at the end of the year, so at least they can take something home with them (by using) whatever is remaining on their meal plan,” he said.
“We’re not resting on our laurels here,” Kessler said. “We monitor it every day to make sure students are getting what they’re paying for.”
During the past few decades, UNC-CH has experimented with alternative meal plan systems. In the early 1990s, Carolina Dining Services established a meal equivalency program that allowed students to use swipes to purchase food at other on-campus vendors.
But this system, which N.C. State University currently uses, was quickly scrapped.
“There were so many complaints about the value students got from their equivalency,” Myers said.
Despite shortcomings in the current system, Myers said he still thinks it is economical.
“We want the meal plan program to be desirable to people because we actually have to sell it,” he said. “We’re not making anybody buy it.”
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8 comments
They are not wasted, it’s just profit for Dining Services
CDS should stop trying to oversell meals to students in the first place, especially freshmen. 95% of students that buy unlimited probably don’t need it. The block plan is really the only way to go because at the end of the year if you have meals left over you can at least swipe in your friends/strangers…
But really, if they’re going to see meals being used, then the quality of food is going to have to improve. Yeah, our food is good compared to many other schools, but sometimes it’s nigh impossible to get a good, wholesome meal in the dining hall, especially rams.
The Hong Kong China Buffet right down the street has a dinner special $6.95 Mon-Thu. The 2 other Chinese down 15-501 from it are also lowering their prices (Hibachi Supreme Buffet & China Buffet). All of their lunches are in the same price range. They also do not require to buy a bunch of meals in advance like CDS. Just saying …
I think part of the problem is that, once you’ve bought a meal plan, Dining Services has your money. They have no incentive to make the food taste any better, cook the food healthier, or even clean off the tables. At a normal facility, say McDonalds, if I don’t like what I’m eating there (and I don’t), I’ll take my business elsewhere.
Would there be any way to have two separate companies managing the dining halls, to give an incentive to improve the quality of the dining experience?
First semester my freshman year was the only semester I had a meal plant. I was bamboozled into getting the 200 and had 100 meals left at the end of it. It was to the point that I canceled my meal plan and just made my own meals in the dorm. It wasn’t hard and I not only saved money but I lost weight too! I’m a senior now and I feel that the quality of the food has improved some, but the price point still doesn’t make it worth it to have one! Almost $10 a meal is insane.
this just makes me want to use all of my leftover meals at the end of the semester to stock up on the delicious cookies. otherwise, CDS doesn’t deserve a dime more than i already give them.
Also, has anyone SEEN the way the ASU meal plans are run? You can use your actual meal swipes for higher quality, REAL food — such as freshly made sub sandwiches, chick-fil-a, mcalisters, etc. etc. Clearly there’s no wonder plans like that don’t go unused. I agree with TonyT that the quality and the selection of the food has to improve dramatically at UNC if anyone realistically expects that the meals are going to be wasted less frequently.
My daughter just graduated in May but her sophomore year she lived in Rams Village and was able to use FLEX money to purchase meals without a meal plan. Well, my son is a sophomore this year and he lives in Rams Village and this is not available anymore. If you live in Odum Village you can purchase FLEX without meal plan but not Rams Village….not sure why they right near one another but oh well. We just put money on his expense to use on campus to eat and it has save a lot of money and he can eat wherever he wants. I believe the meal plans needs to be set up to use at any available place on campus that serves food.
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