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Opinions about on-campus dining services at Illinois Wesleyan are certainly mixed. In an effort to more effectively gauge the opinions of Illinois Wesleyan students regarding the on-campus dining services by Sodexo, The Argus circulated a survey. Rather than email, the survey was spread through Illinois Wesleyan student groups on social media. Questions focused on the quality and nutritional value of the food, how dietary restrictions are being met, students’ perceptions of the environmental sustainability of Sodexo, as well as opinion questions like which location is the best on campus. The survey got 119 responses from students, a little under seven percent of the 1,771 students that attend IWU. Student representation was relatively equal among grades, with 31.9 percent of responses coming from seniors, 20.2 percent from juniors, 26.9 percent from sophomores and 21 percent from freshmen. Responses expectedly ranged from praise of Sodexo as a whole to scathing reviews of past bad experiences. The freshness and quality of the food were the most cited reasons for negative reviews. Of the 119 responses, 58 students, or 48.7 percent, mentioned freshness or quality as an area for improvement. When asked to rank quality and freshness on a scale of one to 10, students gave an average score of 4.45. “Even the healthy options such as salads do not seem fresh and are often frozen for awhile,” one student said. Some of the most common reasons cited for lower scores were the use of less-than-fresh ingredients. “It is as fresh as they can get it, but I’m sure more local food could be utilized which would increase this score,” one student suggested. To avoid freshness issues, one student who works for Sodexo pointed out that the company has a policy for how long food may be used. “Once food has been cooked, leftovers can be stored and used in new dishes for 3 days only,” the student said. Though most graded the food below a five, 36.1 percent of students gave the quality and freshness of Sodexo food as a six or above, with no one assigning a perfect 10. “This year I’ve noticed a marked improvement from last year. I’ve noticed more fresh fruit and steamed vegetables rather than microwaved,” said one student who gave the food a six out of 10. Several other students mentioned having noticed an improvement from years past, also citing an increased availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. Other students, still, brought up things like seeing mold in the salad bar, and three separate responses reported finding bugs in food. “I find the lettuce and other veggies too sketchy from too many instances of bugs and mold. I generally stay away,” one student said, talking about the health of his/her diet. Other students agreed that they do not believe they are eating healthily enough while on campus. When asked to rank the health of their diet on a one to 10 scale, students gave an average score of 4.6. “The options of healthy food are slim to none, even when they say a food is healthy you can’t be sure because the quality of produce and meats used are poor,” said a student who ranked their diet as a three out of 10. Most students echoed this sentiment and said essentially that healthy food is available on a daily basis, but there is either not enough variety in this food or the poor quality of the ingredients negates any benefits that there might be. “There aren’t healthy options available unless you want a salad or wrap every day,” said another student. Variety was also an issue for students with dietary restrictions, such as a gluten-free diet, vegetarian/vegan diet, food allergies and even student-athletes. “I used to be a vegetarian, and it was a little frustrating to only have one option where meat eaters would have multiple. Plus, vegetarian foods like tofu were never seasoned well,” one student said regarding if dietary restrictions are being met. The root of most complaints about Sodexo was the quality of the ingredients. Of the 119 responses to the survey, 61.3 percent claimed that the food has at some point made them feel sick. “Certain foods are good, but others make me sick or are not fresh at all,” a student said. Students by and large do not believe that this has much to do with the staff or how the food is being cooked though. “The fruit and veggies supplied are rarely in good quality and the other foods served hold little nutritional value,” a student said. When asked to rank the saniSurvey says: Sodexo services, a mixed bag Volume 124 | Issue 19 www.iwuargus.com | twitter: @THEARGUSIWU March 30, 2018ARGUStheARGUSthe SEE SODEXO SERVICES P. 2 MATT WEGH MANAGING EDITOR
Object Description
Title | 2018-03-30 |
Publication title | The Argus |
Subject |
Newspapers Universities & colleges Students |
Year | 2018 |
Decade | 2010 |
Publisher | The Argus, Illinois Wesleyan University; printed by The Pantagraph, Bloomington, IL from 1894-2009 and P&P Press, Peoria, IL from 2009-present. |
Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
Contact Information | Please email Tate Archives at archives@iwu.edu or call 309-556-1535 for more information. Permission to reproduce these images must be granted by IWU. |
Collection | Student and Alumni News Periodicals (Illinois Wesleyan University) |
Source | Record Group 11-12: Student Publications |
Type | Image |
Format | Text |
Language | eng |
Digitization Specifications | Argus issues published from 1894-Spring 2003 were scanned at 600 dpi on a NM1000-SS scanner by Northern Micrographics, La Crosse, Wisconsin. Fulltext OCR was accomplished by the same company in Summer 2009. Issues published from the fall of 2003-present are born-digital. |
Description
Title | Page 1 |
Full Text | Opinions about on-campus dining services at Illinois Wesleyan are certainly mixed. In an effort to more effectively gauge the opinions of Illinois Wesleyan students regarding the on-campus dining services by Sodexo, The Argus circulated a survey. Rather than email, the survey was spread through Illinois Wesleyan student groups on social media. Questions focused on the quality and nutritional value of the food, how dietary restrictions are being met, students’ perceptions of the environmental sustainability of Sodexo, as well as opinion questions like which location is the best on campus. The survey got 119 responses from students, a little under seven percent of the 1,771 students that attend IWU. Student representation was relatively equal among grades, with 31.9 percent of responses coming from seniors, 20.2 percent from juniors, 26.9 percent from sophomores and 21 percent from freshmen. Responses expectedly ranged from praise of Sodexo as a whole to scathing reviews of past bad experiences. The freshness and quality of the food were the most cited reasons for negative reviews. Of the 119 responses, 58 students, or 48.7 percent, mentioned freshness or quality as an area for improvement. When asked to rank quality and freshness on a scale of one to 10, students gave an average score of 4.45. “Even the healthy options such as salads do not seem fresh and are often frozen for awhile,” one student said. Some of the most common reasons cited for lower scores were the use of less-than-fresh ingredients. “It is as fresh as they can get it, but I’m sure more local food could be utilized which would increase this score,” one student suggested. To avoid freshness issues, one student who works for Sodexo pointed out that the company has a policy for how long food may be used. “Once food has been cooked, leftovers can be stored and used in new dishes for 3 days only,” the student said. Though most graded the food below a five, 36.1 percent of students gave the quality and freshness of Sodexo food as a six or above, with no one assigning a perfect 10. “This year I’ve noticed a marked improvement from last year. I’ve noticed more fresh fruit and steamed vegetables rather than microwaved,” said one student who gave the food a six out of 10. Several other students mentioned having noticed an improvement from years past, also citing an increased availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. Other students, still, brought up things like seeing mold in the salad bar, and three separate responses reported finding bugs in food. “I find the lettuce and other veggies too sketchy from too many instances of bugs and mold. I generally stay away,” one student said, talking about the health of his/her diet. Other students agreed that they do not believe they are eating healthily enough while on campus. When asked to rank the health of their diet on a one to 10 scale, students gave an average score of 4.6. “The options of healthy food are slim to none, even when they say a food is healthy you can’t be sure because the quality of produce and meats used are poor,” said a student who ranked their diet as a three out of 10. Most students echoed this sentiment and said essentially that healthy food is available on a daily basis, but there is either not enough variety in this food or the poor quality of the ingredients negates any benefits that there might be. “There aren’t healthy options available unless you want a salad or wrap every day,” said another student. Variety was also an issue for students with dietary restrictions, such as a gluten-free diet, vegetarian/vegan diet, food allergies and even student-athletes. “I used to be a vegetarian, and it was a little frustrating to only have one option where meat eaters would have multiple. Plus, vegetarian foods like tofu were never seasoned well,” one student said regarding if dietary restrictions are being met. The root of most complaints about Sodexo was the quality of the ingredients. Of the 119 responses to the survey, 61.3 percent claimed that the food has at some point made them feel sick. “Certain foods are good, but others make me sick or are not fresh at all,” a student said. Students by and large do not believe that this has much to do with the staff or how the food is being cooked though. “The fruit and veggies supplied are rarely in good quality and the other foods served hold little nutritional value,” a student said. When asked to rank the saniSurvey says: Sodexo services, a mixed bag Volume 124 | Issue 19 www.iwuargus.com | twitter: @THEARGUSIWU March 30, 2018ARGUStheARGUSthe SEE SODEXO SERVICES P. 2 MATT WEGH MANAGING EDITOR |