“The plan is to never cycle through bowls, but it just so happened that, this year, we’ve had to go through three different types of bowls to keep up with the volume,” Bon Appétit General Manager Lionel Franks said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger.
New china and cutlery are not new to Stav Hall, but the multiple recent additions to the bowl selection on campus have created conversation. Franks elaborated on the new selection students have to choose from.
“We try to keep a flow of bowls in the cafeteria. It’s hard and challenging to get the same ones consistently,” Franks said. “Sometimes they’re back-order[ed]; sometimes they’re out of stock across the country.”
Franks said that the goal was not to implement multiple varieties of bowls, but outside variables make the decisions for the bulk purchases. This includes tariffs altering pricing or unavailable items from vendors.
Bon Appétit (Bon App) cooks nearly 5,000 meals each day, totaling approximately 30,000 meals each week for the residential community at St. Olaf. Bon App had around 2,000 bowls at the start of this academic year. As the fall semester continued, staff began to see bowls “disappear.”
“We struggle with keeping [the bowls] because some students throw them away, some students take them out of the café, and they never actually make it back. So, they may be in dorm rooms; they may be left downstairs,” Franks said. “That’s part of the struggle with keeping up with the volume … we continue to buy bowls, but we don’t always get the bowls back in the dishroom.”
To manage supplies within Stav, Bon App staff stay diligent to manage purchases of china, which includes plates and bowls for Stav, The Cage, and catering throughout the year.
“We have a budget to adhere to for china,” Franks said. “We’re trying to make sure that you all have bowls to actually just eat out of.”
Bon App aims to purchase melamine bowls — a product that’s dishwasher safe, sustainable, and durable from daily usage.
“We hone in on the longevity or the material of the bowl that’s going to work best here,” Franks said. “It’s just what’s available to us at the time.”
The variety of bowl options in Stav are due to current vendor stock and budgets.
“The current bowls were ordered ‘sight unseen,’” Franks said. “You order something online, and you go, ‘Okay, that’ll work.’ And then you get it, and it’s like, ‘Wow, yeah, we won’t ever order those again.’”
Franks continued to discuss the bowl choices.
“They did come in really small, smaller than what we anticipated,” Franks said. “The bowls that were larger with the slant, we didn’t know they would be so big. We are trying to find a middle ground.”
The introduction of USEFULL bowls has been effective in keeping more china in Stav and in circulation, as well as mitigating food waste.
“There is a motivating factor that if you don’t return the USEFULL bowls, you get charged the price,” Franks said. “There is no motivator for the regular Stav china, aside from the fact that you need it again.”
However, there is no clear reason as to why there has been a significant increase in the disappearance of bowls this academic year.
“The good thing is that we know that the students are actually eating, which is great,” Franks said. “We just need them to bring the china back.”
