Bon Appetit: Food pricing 'proprietary information'

By Kristen Parrish

Bon Appetit Management Company and the university refused to release specific information about how students' food money is spent, according to interviews with management and Associated Students officials this week.

"The university listens, but Bon Appetit doesn't understand students," said Austin Woody, freshman senator and chair of next year's Current University Issues Committee.

Current CUIC Chair Kristen Stokes, who was in charge of organizing an AS Senate forum last week to discuss prices with food-service management, believed high food prices was the top concern with the on-campus food-service provider.

"I just want to know how much Bon Appetit is making off of students," she said.

Bon Appetit General Manager Cathy Straub said that financial information requested by AS officials was "proprietary information" and "very private," and that she and the company's university liaison, Pat Wilkinson, both decided not to release figures.

But Wilkinson said that she never received such a request from AS. "They never asked for anything specific," she said. "If I got that, I missed it."

Stokes was hoping that the Bon Appetit forum would be more like a tuition forum held last quarter, where university representatives presented a PowerPoint presentation that highlighted where tuition money went.

"We really wanted a breakdown like the tuition forum, even if they didn't want to give exact numbers that's fine. We just wanted a percentage of where the money goes and where it comes from," she said.

Woody believed, however, that Bon Appetit had not been responsive to student complaints in the past. "They say they will do things but they haven't followed through," he said. "We plan on reminding them."

At the forum in the Benson Memorial Center parlors, Straub and Wilkinson listened to student complaints and offered explanations for pricing issues.

Wilkinson pointed out that the university sets prices -- not Bon Appetit.

"Bon Appetit recommends the prices on dining venues and does research, but it is the university who sets prices," she said. "It's more expensive because we have more venues and we need to staff them."

Straub also said that Bon Appetit pays its employees a "living wage" -- in accordance with local guidelines -- as a reason why pricing is higher.

According to Straub, for every dollar Bon Appetit spends, nearly 47 cents goes to labor, about 12 percent higher than what is normally paid.

Straub also said that higher pricing was because of the quality of food Bon Appetit food provides. "We have a social conscience, in that we buy food from local farmers, our produce is organic, and we buy line-caught fish, which is more expensive," she said.

"The food is better for you," she said, "but it is more labor-intensive."

Wilkinson also spoke about Bon Appetit's declining balance program, which gives students unlimited access to food rather than a set number of meals per day.

The plan also requires Bon Appetit to keep the main dining hall open longer hours.

* Contact Kristen Parrish at (408) 554-4546 or at knparrish@scu.edu