Exeter’s Dining Hall Budget and Spending Called Into Question

Exeter’s Dining Services spend every day preparing, serving and cleaning up after the meals of Exonians. Exeter’s financial record shows that during the 2014-15 school year, 5,204,000 dollars were spent on dining services alone, according to the Director of Dining Services, Ward L. Ganger and Assistant Director, Melinda Leonard.

In addition to funding special events like Jazz Brunch or class dinners, these funds are spent on food for daily meals and salaries for the dining services staff.

Ganger and Leonard allocate the overall budget for dining services into five sections: Elm Street, Wetherell, the bakeshop, catering and grill. Then they pass on each section’s funds to the manager of the appropriate section.

“What’s healthy at Elm Street is healthy at Wetherell, and vice versa.”

For example, Elm Street Dining Hall Manager Michael Como decides how to spend the funds for Elm Street.

He explained that there are multiple accounts whose funds are each allocated toward very specific purposes. For example, the special events line goes toward the non-food related aspects of events like Jazz Brunch, funding decorations, music and rentals.

The majority of the budget is geared towards food for the daily meals and labor, which includes health benefits for the dining service workers.

Como said that the price of a single meal varies depending on whether it is a breakfast, lunch or dinner meal, but also depending on the food that is being served.

“It varies based on menu mix,” he said. “A lunch may cost $2.00 or $1.75 [per person].” Since the entire student body consists of approximately 1,000 students, this means that a single lunch costs about 2,000 dollars, excluding the added costs of meals for staff and extra food.

The dining hall also hosts special events such as Jazz Brunch, which is significantly more expensive than Exeter’s average lunch.

“It’s probably triple the amount for a normal meal,” Como said. But, he thought the extra money was worth the result. “I think it’s just something to look forward to in their [students’] everyday grind,” he said.

Some students felt that the money spent on Jazz Brunch could be better spent on something that would reap year-long benefits.

Lower Chiara Perotti said, “You might as well spend the money on getting better food. They [Elm Street Dining Hall] should have more variety. The Jazz Brunch budget should be spent on something year round.”

Ganger said, however, that the money spent on Jazz Brunch is “like a penny out of a dollar” in relation to the entire food budget and that these funds are best spent as they are now—providing a bright spot in students’ lives during the middle of winter term.

“As a percentage, it’s very small,” said Ganger, regarding the Jazz Brunch budget. He added that allocating that money elsewhere “would not have a huge impact in terms of making a change in the purchasing we do.”

Como specified the purchasing of food to be the same for both dining halls.

“Typically, we try to do the same events during lunch as Wetherell,” he said. Yet, some students do not feel as if both dining halls are equal in their food choices and the qualities of their meals.

Lower Tricia Moriarty said that she liked Elm Street more than Wetherell because it provides students with more options.

“Wetherell is very tailored to one thing,” she said, “and if you don’t like what’s on the hotline at Wetherell there’s only a sandwich or a salad.”

Perotti disagreed and said, “I personally think that the food at Wetherell is better. Food-wise, Wetherell wins, both [taste]-wise and health-wise.”

However, according to Ganger, the idea that Elm and Wetherell serve markedly different food is a misconception. He explained that the entire dining services department adheres to one set of standards called minimums. The only difference is how each manager chooses to write their menu and go beyond these minimums.

Some of these choices are based purely on the resources available to each dining hall. For example, Elm Street has a hearth, which allows for dishes like pizza and calzones, whereas Wetherell does not.

Leonard explained that dining services uses a software program that stores over 5,000 recipes, which Exeter has created and developed.

Both Elm and Wetherell pull their recipes from this bank, so while the menu is different night to night at each dining hall, the food is the same.

“What’s healthy at Elm Street is healthy at Wetherell, and vice versa,” Leonard said.

Ganger said that it’s important to work from these shared recipes so that dishes are prepared the same way in each facility and so that the allergens are being closely observed and community members know exactly what ingredients are going into each of their meals. He explained that these dietary considerations are an essential part of the program because they ensure that people with dietary restrictions are not negatively impacted.

He and Leonard have also worked closely with Exeter’s nutritionist Pamela Stuppy, examining the nutritional aspect of the menu. They deliberately decided not to share with the students the specific dietary break up of the meal, for example, the number of calories or carbohydrates, because they want to be sensitive towards students with eating disorders. Instead, red, yellow and green sign symbols flash on the digital menu boards to indicate the overall health of the meal.

“There have been studies that would indicate that some students may not use that information properly, [specifically] those that may have eating disorders,” Ganger said. “[This is] a wiser way to go,” he said.

Since most of the work that goes into making Exeter’s food service function occurs behind-the-scenes, it is easy for Exonians to forget how difficult the dining services staff works to make sure we receive the most appetizing and nutritious food possible. The special events that Elm and Wetherell host represent a significant time contribution on the servers’ parts and in many people’s eyes are a gift to the students.

“There’s a lot that goes into the planning and the execution of an event such as the Jazz Brunch in terms of a team coming together and developing the theme, developing the menu to support that theme and then setting up all of the decor and the stations that are going to be used for those menu items for the service,” Ganger said.