During busy days of classes and studying, college students need food to keep the fire burning. Fresh Ideas, the new campus food provider, has been filling this need at Fort Lewis College for the past semester.
Fresh Ideas, who replaced Sodexo at FLC in July 2024, has implemented several changes to campus food options, such as new 24/7 vending machines and bringing companies like Starbucks and Zia Taqueria to campus.
Due to Colorado state contracting regulations, Fort Lewis College was required to go out to bid on a food provider, Amber Grenhart, director of the Student Union, said.
While Sodexo could have been selected again, Fort Lewis decided to go with Fresh Ideas, Grenhart said.
The decision to implement Fresh Ideas came from the Request for Proposal Committee, which Grenhart sat on with three other Fort Lewis administrators, she said.
However, this decision wasn’t made by the committee alone. Grenhart said the RFP committee received hundreds of feedback forms from students who attended the potential food providers presentations during the spring 2024 semester.
One of the biggest challenges Fresh Ideas has faced is consistent staffing.
“Really only a handful of my previous coworkers have come back, and most of them were already kind of in senior executive positions,” said Jay Hall, a cook for Fresh Ideas who previously worked for Sodexo.
When Fresh Ideas opened, around 45 employees were hired to provide daily food for campus, said Grenhart. Fresh Ideas was initially given an average lunch attendance of 400 students, which were the averages for previous semesters, Grenhart said.
These numbers were given to Fresh Ideas so they could plan for the fall, Grenhart said.
Upon opening in the fall semester, an average of seven to eight hundred students attended the dining hall, which was significantly higher than what FLC or Fresh Ideas was expecting, Grenhart said.
“We weren't prepared for it,” Grenhart said. “They weren't prepared for it because we gave them numbers of four hundred,” she said.
Staffing shortages at the beginning of the semester is what led to food quality concerns, Hall said.
To feed this unexpected number of students, staff at Fresh Ideas were pushing food out too quickly and weren’t doing the proper measurements, Grenhart said.
Fresh Ideas has since switched to pre-cooked chicken, which compromises some of the flavor, but doesn’t compromise the safety of students, Grenhart said.
Grenhart said that the switch away from raw chicken was immediate, and occurred in less than a day.
To monitor the safety of food, Fresh Ideas measures the temperatures of all items before leaving the kitchen, and after being placed into the dining hall for student consumption, Hall said.
These records are open to the public, and any student can ask to see the temperature logs during food service by asking a manager, Grenhart said.
Fresh Ideas has now hired more staff, and recently hired 20 more part-time workers, Grenhart said.
Currently, Fresh Ideas employs about 80 workers, with seven managers to work with them, she said.
“I think every transition comes with a certain amount of challenges and staffing this year was one for us,” said Mitchel Pinkelman, the regional director of Fresh Ideas, over email.
Training the staff on the new systems and processes was another challenge, he said.
As the semester has progressed, things have certainly gotten better, he said. However, there is still room for improvement, he said.
Students are at the forefront of the dining hall changes, so their feedback is incredibly valuable for the process, Grenhart said.
Carson Mccardle, a first-year student, said that the menu diversity and item selection offered is something he enjoys.
Something that he thinks that could be improved on is the pizza crust and the quality checking of food, Mccardle said.
Mccardle thinks that the new vending machines are a cool concept, with the way it automatically knows what you take and put back, he said.
The fresh on demand machines, new to FLC, were a major push from the college to provide students with food options at every hour of the day, Grenhart said.
Currently, there are two vending machines, located in the Reed Library and Jones hall. Anyone with a Skycard can access the library machine at any time, as the building is open 24/7, Grenhart said.
Brett Stonebraker, a junior student and FLC football player, said that the switch from Sodexo to Fresh Ideas has led to a better quality of food, but is lackluster on certain days.
The food is more filling, tastier, has more options, and are reasons that he finds Fresh Ideas more enjoyable, Stonebraker said.
For more food options, students can expect Zia Taqueria to open early next spring, Pinkelman said.
Zia, which will be located above the dining hall where the Rocket Grill once was, is currently awaiting construction this December, Grenhart said.
V Barney, a senior student, says that he has not seen much of a difference between the quality and freshness of food provided by Fresh Ideas when compared to Sodexo.
While he is not impressed with Fresh Ideas so far, the menu changes is something that he has enjoyed, he said.
Lower prices for greater accessibility among students are something that he also hopes will change going forward, he said.
The introduction of Fresh Ideas at FLC has only just begun, Grenhart said.
“It's going to take a couple years for them to get into the groove of everything and then make momentums and big changes for campus,” she said.
If students have feedback for Fresh Ideas, they are encouraged to use the “Foodie Feedback” QR code to send comments and concerns to the team, Pinkelman said.
Speaking to a manager on duty is another avenue for voicing concerns, Grenhart and Pinkelman said.