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Grab ’n Go

Healthy Bites on the Go

hen Dining Services at Washington State University Veggie trays — priced at $2.99 each — are among the ad-
(WSU) in Pullman was not happy with the quality of ditions. “They have small snack-sized portions that are easier
Witems an outside vendor was supplying for its grab ’n on the pocketbook for a busy student on the go, that is going to
go operations, the decision was made to bring the production give them their fresh veggies and a nice little dip, or a turkey
in-house — and the Bites program was born. and veggie pack,” said Kennedy. “We decided to keep the
“We had a large number of grab ’n go items that were not costs down, but the fresh, high quality up; so if a student is in
coming from our own facilities,” said Adam Koerner, assistant a hurry — and of course they can only grab something really
director of culinary operations. “We were charging a pretty quickly for lunch — they have more options than a $7 wrap.
good amount of money for it, just because the retail markup They seem to be really flying off of the shelves right now.”
is what we had to do based on what we were buying it for. Dining hasn’t entirely removed animal proteins from the
The quality just wasn’t great. The shelf life seemed to be too grab ‘n go menu. “The goal isn’t to do away with all of the
long. It seemed that the product had been made three or four animal proteins, but definitely be inclusive to all college stu-
days before we would even get it into our hands.” dents’ culinary desires,” said Koerner.
He continued, “The thought was that we could do a better One of the plant-based-protein options available is chick-
job on campus with our grab ’n go program and try to supple- peas from a Washington company. “We have continued our
ment daily-made items with any of the products we were cur- partnership with Fresh Nature Foods from Spokane,” he said.
rently purchasing from our vendors. Our vendor’s main facility “We use their green chickpea hummus in one of the snack
was in Seattle, which geographically in Washington is on the packs, as well as their green chickpea falafel bites in one of
other side of the state. The product was being produced there, the wraps and in one of the snack packs. Laurie created a
shipped over to Spokane and then delivered to us finally the delicious lemon tahini dressing to go with those items.”
next day or two days later. We didn’t particularly like that.” For dietician Ma, the healthy items aren’t about the numbers,
The launch of the Bites program was done in two phases, but the ingredients. “In general, we aren’t looking at numbers,
beginning in the fall of 2016. “The first phase was taking but things like using whole fresh fruits,” she said. “No. 1 be-
what we were currently buying from our vendors and seeing ing more plant-based foods, like the falafel wrap, no eggs or
if we could do it better,” said Koerner. “We reproduced it at dairy, and having veggies with the lemon tahini dip instead
a higher quality and a lower price. That was our main goal in of the ranch dip that we usually had. Taking out things like
the first phase with the resources, labor, everything we had, cheese, limiting things like mayo. It is not really the overall
to be able to put toward it.” calorie counts; it is really limiting those animal products. The
The program was a hit from the get-go. “Just two months other thing with that is using plant-based proteins. A lot of
in, we saw a huge increase in response and sales,” said Laurie veggie entrées don’t contain a lot of the proteins. We were
Kennedy, executive chef at the central production unit, where very careful to include things like chickpeas and tofu for the
the items are produced. proteins in those items.”
The second phase of the program launched at the begin- Kennedy said that the price-point and healthy, fresh of-
ning of the fall 2017 semester, with a focus on increasing the ferings aren’t the only reasons why Bites has been a success.
healthy offerings. “This year, we really wanted to work with “It is really well done in its packaging, and we are improving
Alice [Ma], our dietician, to cut back on the sodium and cut our labeling system,” she said. “It is inviting and it looks very
back on the fat, and introduce plant-based proteins, as opposed fresh — and it was just made. We are working with marketing
to bacon and chicken on everything,” she said. “In Dining to make sure that more awareness gets out that it is made on
Services in general, I think we are headed toward a more campus daily. That is a huge selling point if people know that
plant-based protein option. That seems to be it is made here locally.”
the direction people are headed these days, —OCH
and we wanted to be right on top with that.”

20 | OCTOBER 2017 ON-CAMPUS HOSPITALITY