January 30 – Whitmans reopens at dinner
                           Grab n Go reopens
                           Eco Cafe reopens
                           82 Grill reopens
                           Lee Snackbar open regular hours
                           Lee After Dark opens for invited guests 9pm-11pm

                                Soup: Caldo de Pollo, & Caldo de Res

                                   Cuban Ropa Viega-Flank Steak
                                              Arroz Rojo-Red Rice

                                        Tamale Bar, Pupusa Station

                 Tortilla Chip Bar with Mexican Cheese, Guacamole
                 Cilantro, Tomatillo Salsa, Pico de Gallo,Sour Cream

                 Jicama and Watercress, Served with Lime and Tajin
                               Plantains, Leafy Greens, Pinto Beans
                                   Organic Quinoa, White Rice, Corn

                                           Tes Leche Cake, Churros
                                  Horchata, Mexican Hot Chocolate

Attendance:  Maria Cruz, Jerry Byers, Mark Thompson, Gayle Donohue, Jerry D’Achille, Jr. Chris Moresi, Molly O’Brien, Jacob Blar, Katie Holmes, Erica Lansberg, Kelsey Giaetjens, Tyler Sparks, Sara Clark, Brent Wasser

Chris Abayasinghe

- Welcome

Roundtable of introductions

Co-council presidents

Last year’s food committee – Chris Abayasinghe.  Opportunity to peruse the mission statement.   We want students to communicate to others as a unified committee

Some recommendations make sense.   We would love to have student help and getting the word out.  Use social media that we would want to see.  The mission statement also talks about crafting menus.  We need to speak in detail about the menu planning that we do in the summer

Maria Cruz – student dining services committee specific – not relationships with purveyors.   What do the students want? Is there a place for students – bids, how food is sourced and purchased?  This is part of the operational discussion.

Spoke about the possibility of students being involved with purveyor bids.  This is a significant commitment which ties in to the real food challenge

One student, Sara, is on the food challenge so she can represent them.

Is there someone who would want to take on this commitment?   We are open to that piece and how that functions.   For example, a request for proposal, ask a student to come in and help represent it.  Possibly Sarah

Second semester for food planning local menus.  We go through that certain phase in February which is pretty dry.  Brent and Mark have been working on a local plant.  Ginsberg is trying to process and freeze more local vegetables for us.  The real food challenge – will help us as well.

Mark  – we use Paradise farms.  Green River, Moses farms. Moses beefsteak tomatoes are just gorgeous.  We try to put that in our menu planning.  PVF Bill more greens and squash.  High lawn creamery – we use all their cream that helps out with the gelato program as well.  Local from Lee, MA

Nitty Gritty flour for our Pizza program  is a great product

Also sourced as gluten-free flour – making it in our bakery – as close as we can get it. excellent quality.

Maple Brook Cheese – mozzarella out of Bennington VT and feta, smoked mozzarella

Dole and Bailey Meats have become a huge part of this Boston distribution. They have a quality house.  Tested before it walks in the door

Ioka farms – local

Golden Acres – 80 miles in NY

Misty Knoll – Manchester NH

Burgers at Mission on Wednesday – local grass-fed burgers as well

Food day event – Dole and Bailey some sort of beef we can use and to use their product

If we plan in advance – it does work out. We have made a really good start in moving in the right direction – try to do the best we can within budget.

Myron soy sauce – local produce, organic line as well. We are in the process of using Sweet Brook and Ioka farms for maple syrup. Brent has been very helpful as well with some great ideas. Hopefully we can incorporate this into our menus. We just have to find a way to make it happen – boneless verses cut-up organic, local

Chis Abayasinghe – we could use help in fall menu planning if possible.

Brent and Chris shared our resources.  Eric is also part of the dining services collecting allergen information for Net Nutrition – primary goal for the first phase.   Assessing the origins of the foods we purchase and how we compare to other schools.  3 students on the real food challenge likely before Thanksgiving.

Certain collaborative approaches.  Can continue to support and collaborate with Zilhka Center.  The student can go between 2 departments and realize the links and the shared goals

Chris – asked if we would we approve the mission statement or reconvene for next time?

Meal Plan

One student wondering about guest meals. Roll-over program within a week.  If you don’t swipe for a couple of dinners, can you use it to get a  more substantial for the snack bar at night? Interested in changing the 21 meal plan as a freshman.  Explore a 5 meal plan. Block points offered more widely.  Why can’t everyone choose a 2 block?  They are for commuter students.  Chris – 21 meal plan – probably here to stay. Possibilities exist to up the 10 to a 12 or a 5 to 7. Maria Cruz: Too low a meal plan creates a scavenger food mentality for some students.

Chis – Middlebury – open plan.  Students can dine as many times as they want.

Everyone is charged the same amount – comprehensive fee structure.

Williams’s students – fundamentally important to have a choice. Various questions to Chris about meal plans – to be considered….. We should look at exploring more options…

Student Questions

Weekly special for late night snack bar? – Jerry B – we will be implementing them this week.  Net Nutrition is being developed for this.

Paresky side salad bowls are too small.  Better to have the medium sized bowls. Jerry D said there were cereal bowls nearby that students can use.

Why do we not get more green tea for the dining hall? Buy more green tea… Students choose the higher end gourmet teas that cost more.  Goes really fast!

Greylock Dining hall – what is the status of that is it coming back.. Can we open it again?  Chris, – Greylock is not slated to open again at this time. We have seen both a decrease and an increase in the dining hall numbers since closing Greylock.

Jerry D – Express breakfast at Paresky in the morning.  Some want a more traditional breakfast for students who are in a hurry.

Explore vegan options from Grab and Go – Paresky vegan options. Need to explore healthier non-vegan/vegetarian options. Paresky food does not appear to be as healthy…….

Healthier sandwich option too!!

Mission and Driscoll have very separate identities …Possibly replicate some items towards Paresky. Maria – go to Paresky out of convenience – not necessarily what is on the menu.

Jerry remembered the huge bistro burger at Mission park in the good old days…

We want to be able to provide as much choice as possible.  End of Meeting

Dear Members of the Student Food Committee,

Welcome back to the purple valley!

Dining services has been busy this summer working on a number of improvements to the dining experience at Williams. I’m excited to introduce Net Nutrition – our mobile dining app that lists all our food ingredients (http://nutrition.williams.edu/NetNutrition/Home.aspx ). This technological enhancement to our dining experience is the result of many individuals working on increasing menu transparency. Debuting this fall, Net Nutrition will enable each guest to preview the menu, its ingredients and filter for all allergens.

I’m also excited to introduce a Noodle Bowl at Mission Park! Our lead culinary chef at Mission, David Berger, and his team has worked on an authentic Ramen noodle menu at the Marche Station. This new addition to our menu will begin after our first meeting in September.  We hope you can get to Mission to enjoy.

The 2011-2012 Committee had a great year and worked hard on developing the “Food Committee Student Guidelines” (http://dining.williams.edu/food-committee-minutes/student-food-committee-mission41812/ ) . I would encourage each of you to review the document so we can discuss its contents and recommendations when we meet. This will establish the guidelines under which our committee will serve the larger student body.

I am happy to announce that the ’82 Grill received the annual “Food Committee Award” based on the Committee’s May votes.  The Grill staff members were recognized during our departmental training days meeting.  Staff Training days this year focused on allergens, special diets and a “Back to Basics” theme.

I look forward to meeting each new member of the committee along with welcoming back our returning members at our first meeting at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 18^th in the Dennett Room at Mission Park.

For the remainder of the school year, we will meet on the following days—

10/16                Lounge/Driscoll

11/13                Paresky 210/Whitmans’

12/11                Dennett Room/Mission

1/15                  Lounge/Driscoll

2/12                  Paresky 210/Driscoll

3/12                  Dennett Room/Mission

4/16                  Lounge/Driscoll

5/7                    Paresky 210/Whitmans’

Best always,

Bob

Robert P. Volpi

Director of Dining Services

RPV/sjm

Monday — Friday
10:30am- 1:30pm
June 18 through Aug. 17

Fall 2012

MISSION STATEMENT

We, the college council student dining services committee, are a student organization committed to acting as a liaison between dining services and the student body.  Our role is to faithfully represent the diverse food preferences within the student body, while at the same time honoring sustainable, nutritionally valuable, wholesome food as we craft menus and relationships with our purveyors.  We aim to connect students to their food, and to facilitate student ownership and thought over choices in the dining halls.

We are committed to being a proactive, dynamic group that approaches issues in the dining halls creatively, practically, and optimistically.  We will attend two meetings monthly: one with dining services, as well as one with only the student committee in order to organize an agenda for the meetings with dining services.  Additionally, the chairperson of the group will attend college council meetings to maintain a relationship with representatives of the student body.

AGENDA

Possible projects for the Student Dining Services Committee include:

• Organizing student leadership in dining halls on Claiming Williams day or for other community-oriented meals
• Developing lines of communication to the student body (through blogs, WSO, emails, Facebook, drop boxes, etc) to advertise developments in Dining Services or request feedback on projects
• Share your favorite recipe day—perhaps separate from “Recipe from home day,” we could develop a “recipe exchange.”  One student per month could be chosen to teach a workshop to Dining Services, and a member of Dining Services could teach students their favorite recipe.

LEADERSHIP

• Chairperson: reports to student government meetings
• One (or several) students responsible for communication between dining service events and student body
  • Eg: establishing a clear line of communication for events such as “recipes from home day” à on dining services side, when have events like this tell student committee in advance
  • Have one student responsible for organizing events where students participate in dining hall directly
    • Eg: recruiting for Claiming Williams Day participation
    • Designated student and/or dining service staff responsibility for communicating changes in dining Hall
      • Eg: “Did you know you can cut the line?!” signs at Driscoll, “BABY CARROTS IN THE FRIDGE!” sign at Grab and Go
      • Sustainable food representative in attendance (both Zilkha center sustainable food manager and also student member who can represent an interest group like the Real Food Challenge)

Mark,
Chris, Jerry B., Molly, Dan and Jerry, Brent, Chris M, Gayle D, 4 Students

Chris A. Wants to share with us some important developments that the dining team has
worked on in reference to communicating menus to the student body as a whole -
mobile dining app.

For the last semester and a half, the managers and cooks have:

Food committee shared with us.  What’s up with the menus and web page…?

As part of the task is to re-vamp the menus and to compress the contents to be
readily accessible on the phone

Mobile sight is live as of tomorrow.

Appreciated the team.  Duly noted.  Mobile dining site is the first step of the
colleges drive to create a real online presence.

Various phases of updating menus. From paper and standardized to separate dining halls
under our own menus.  Website, working to evolve this.

We can add the app to be the link.  Can see all the menus.  Mangers can update in real time.

Open up for discussion from the students

Think it is awesome.  Checks the menus all the time.  Do not like to scroll. Really good.  Student is looking now and says it is really good.  Site is most visited sight on campus.  Excited as a team for having this up.

Brent- how did it work out with icons or meet other dietary needs.

Chris- one of the items submitted in its budget is called net nutrition that operates off of our CBORD system.  This
program would drive all of the nutritional information and link to web site.  The idea is to be able to drive
the updates;

Looking for feedback – what’s out there.  Does it work?

Mark thinks it will be a great tool and help out with the nutritionals as well.   If you go to the RIT website you can see it
in operation.  Shows calories, vegan, gluten-free, low-sodium.

It is going to take a while to get going and should be on track for next fall.  Will be cleaning up the system to “clean up the recipes” really exciting and should help everybody out.

Chris- feature available on RIT you have in the drop down features that you can see what is available at the
location.   It also adds up the items you selected and adds up the total calories.  Good for counting calories.

Chris – update   there has been a working group with the Zilkha center and dining services to be able to look at what is
sustainable dining?  Or what is a sustainable food program.

Recent discussion to go through the process from a quantifiable perspective or a holistic approach.  Great conversations
with students …

Brent – the conversations have been taking place.  He is excited about the future possibilities.  The more resolute on how all of our goals aligned…  We are on a good path

Chris, in the interest of time.  Would like to touch base with the students to talk about one of the items from the last  meeting.  The purpose of the food committee

Olivia- brainstorm document of all the things are worthwhile values for our  committee.

General things that we want to have going on for food committee dining.

Goals- represent student body

Increase communication and the student body

WSO announcement Inviting people to submit feedback to reps directly

Increasing feedback at the dining halls.

Weekly survey possible.  What do you enjoy?

Does this person’s desire for this fit into our sustainable dining program

Setting a number for communication?   May be problematic

Having someone who is designated to speak to college council so there is more cooperative work.  Possible have someone
working from Zilkha Center

Chris- question of soliciting do you want students or managers to go over the comments?  Actively making a menu with us
- would be life-changing.

Student general monkey survey.  A better idea.

Last survey 2009 – worked with a consultant to view trends.  Good turn-out.

Launching a survey would be a very good idea.  Would the food committee like to work on this?  Yes. The students would love to do that.

May combine sustainable food with a more general food survey.

Chris- highlight a number of special events next week

All Unit Day Earth Day, Africa, Asia, Seafood Earth Day at Driscoll, Lavender Cheesecake with Cricket Farm Cheese,

Williams Day, April 28th BBQ

May 11 All-Campus Cook-Out

Recipes from Home, April 26 – dwindling this year.  Students – poor publicity. Students are not aware of it.  Driven by the alumni office – parents send in recipes.  Should e-mail the students directly.  Put in daily messages – should be the responsibility for the next food committee next year.

Jerry D. Bollywood Dinner with Student Life – they helped with the decorations and flowed into the event with the weekend.  Actually made use of one meal and expanded.

Will be doing the same thing on earth day for Sunday. Last couple of days admissions preview. Really good turn-out.

Dan- bar for parent reception – many parents were pleased with the politeness and friendliness of the students.  Jerry D -
a lot of parents focusing in on what the cost of the meal plan.

As we go into the next year – our next meeting is our last one.  Students – write a summary of what we have
accomplished this year.  Highlighting what the food committee has done and set an agenda for what the next year’s
committee will be working on.  Great.

Also great to have a separate meeting as a student group. – give more organization and more time with an agenda.

Fruit in a Flash – chips verses baby carrots – an alternative for chips from grab and go. Looking for something healthy instead of potato chips

Popped Corn Chips – Jerry has some at grab and go – cheap and in the green room.  Molly – can adopt that at eco-café

Baby carrots?  Most of the time we give them away because no one eats them. Poor selling – sold ten out of 40 prepared.  Perhaps they need better signage.  Try our new baby carrots!! Because it is really busy, they need to be more visible.

Is it possible to move the arrangement of food at Driscoll? Always an enormous back-up.  If you want item 1 and item 2
you have to wait and stay.  Could there be a single layer of food?  Very first station – sometimes there are 4 items. If one person is taking their time it slows down the line.

Chris Moresi, – can we run a report to see what the time is?

Frustrated with that slow person. Limited by the size of the heat deck.

Molly- could put more hot items in chafers on the Marché. Would that speed up the line?  If you offered the same basic
lines on both, it might help.  It seems like the student still want to go through the buffet line even though there is
food at the Marché.

Suggests a double buffet.

From a design perspective, one of the studies is about building design.  One challenge was the fact that you have to
go through the line.

Sign- did you know you could cut the line?

Open-discussion about wait times and the challenges.

Chris M. will summarize the year for the next meeting.

Thanks very much for joining us.  Enjoy!

See dining.williams.edu for other options.